Irish Examiner View: UK trial is legal setback for Vatican

The sovereign state must face a hearing brought by British financier Raffaele Mincione.

Prelates listen to Pope Francis during a ceremony of Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican in 2019. Picture: Andrew Medichini/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Legal history will be made in English courts when the Vatican faces an overseas trial, for the first time in its existence, over a complex land deal in London involving a former Harrods warehouse valued at €148m.

A decision by the British Court of Appeal means that the 121-acre sovereign state must face a hearing brought by a British financier, Raffaele Mincione, who is himself the subject of charges initiated by the Vatican over the property at 60 Sloane Avenue in Kensington and Chelsea, which was targeted for luxury development.