Court of Appeal upholds 12 month sentence for former Mansion CEO Karel Mañasco

The Court of Appeal has upheld the contempt findings and 12-month prison sentence against former Mansion chief executive Karel Mañasco.

The case stems from a series of court undertakings and a worldwide freezing order imposed on Mr Manasco in 2022 and 2023.

The Freezing order was put in place after Karel Mañasco's former employers, Mansion, accused him of a breach of contractual fiduciary and non-fiduciary duties during his time as CEO.

Under the Court's order, Karel Mañasco was banned from moving or spending any of his assets, to the tune of five million pounds, except for up to ten thousand pounds a week on ordinary living expenses.

But the Chief Justice later found that he breached those limits repeatedly.

He was said to have made a a sixty-five-thousand-pound payment for a new Range Rover, made false statements in a sworn affidavit, and transferred more than four-hundred-thousand pounds from Gibraltar to an account in his wife’s name in Spain, in defiance of the court order.

Mr Mañasco argued that the weekly spending cap should have been treated as an average allowance squared over time, that the transfer caused no prejudice, and that the Range Rover was a commitment he had already entered into beforehand, but the Court of Appeal rejected those claims.

In a unanimous ruling, the judges described the breaches as “flagrant” and said Mr Mañasco, a qualified accountant, knew exactly what was required of him.

They upheld his twelve-month concurrent jail term, six months of which could be lifted if he returns four-hundred-thousand pounds to the court.

Mr Mañasco has not returned to the jurisdiction to serve his sentence.