How King Felipe protected his daughter Princess Leonor as he renounced his $58 million inheritance

On Monday Spain’s Royal House announced that  King Felipe VI of Spain  would renounce a $58 million inheritance from his father, King Juan Carlos, after the revelation that the money, a gift to the former King from Saudi Arabia while his was on the throne, was kept in an offshore account. While the statement acknowledged that Juan Carlos would lose his public allowance from the state's general budget, it also included another revealing detail: a mention of King Felipe’s 14-year-old daughter, the future Queen of Spain,  Princess Leonor. 

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The Royal House explained that King Felipe had been informed via a letter from an attorney that he would be the beneficiary of the Lucum Foundation the moment his father Don Juan Carlos, a current beneficiary, passes away. In a notarized letter, Felipe replied that if he or his daughter Princess Leonor were designated as beneficiaries, he would not accept any participation or benefit from it, renouncing any right, expectation or interest from the Foundation.

King Felipe further distanced both himself and Princess Leonor from the inheritance in question, saying that neither he nor third parties, in particular his daughter, were aware of or had permission to “participate in any active, investment or financial structure whose origins don’t align with the law, the criteria of transparency, the integrity, and the exemplarity of his official and personal activity.”