anne - // Are deals made when one is innocent ? //
They are, and in civil cases like this is, they are quite common.
In Andrew's case, it could be the best option.
As the Newsnight interview showed, he absolutely categorically cannot be allowed to answer any questions about anything, because he will hang himself for the boorish self-centered arrogant idiot that he clearly is.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing - and with it, his defence will be wishing that they had not gone so far down the avoidance route, because it has gained them nothing, and lost Andrew every bit of support he may have had.
Instead of inviting the lady to put up or shut up, his legal team have spent six years wriggling and squirming and dissembling and avoiding to get nowhere at all, except back to square one.
In the process, apart from destroying his own integrity with the sort of colossal absence of self awareness that characterises Andrew's absence of judgement, his lawyers have made him look guilty before he even gets to court.
Because, in a civil case, the plantiff does not have to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt, as in a criminal case, the proof is only required to be belief on the preponderence of evidence, and that is far easier to achieve, Andrew is on seriously shaky ground if he opts to go for a trial.
That leaves a settlement, and indications are that the plaintiff is not minded to let him off even for an eight figure sum, so she may force him into court anyway.
A settlement is the very least worst of a bunch of seriously bad options because, even though it is common in civil cases, in the case of Andrew, the world will not unreasonably ask why he is not fighting his case if he is not guilty?
That's because, unlike an anonymous figure, he is a member of the Royal Family and the eyes of the world are on him, and what happens from here.
The only sure and certain fact is that his imagined (in his own mind and nowhere else) return to public life is never ever going to happen.
He will be given the most low-profile life the Family can create, and they will move on without him because the brand is everything and Charles will not sanction its damage for his idiot brother, even if his mother way wish to.
Interesting times ahead ...