LONDON — Sheikh Hamad Isa Ali al-Khalifa was in a funk. His father had just died, and the sheikh, a cousin of the king of Bahrain, had sunk into depression. Casting about for a way to revive his spirits, his friends and relatives hit on a plan: have him invest some of his hefty inheritance in a scheme to meet his favorite Bollywood stars.

The 49-year-old sheikh had nurtured a passion for Bollywood films ever since his Indian nanny introduced him to the genre as a child. So he immediately took to the idea, and after collecting his inheritance was prepared to pay large sums of money to meet his idols.

But the amount and terms of what he was willing to pay came into dispute last year and ended up in a courtroom in London, where an Egyptian businessman accused the sheikh of reneging on a deal for more than $40 million that involved meeting dozens of Bollywood celebrities in India.

“In spite of the endless amounts of cash he was willing to spend on his obsession, including on one occasion handing me a dark gray Samsonite suitcase and a Cartier or Rolex carton containing 600,000 pounds and $250,000 in cash, the payments suddenly dried up,” the businessman, Ahmed Adel Abdallah Ahmed, said after bringing his claim to the British High Court.

On Friday, the High Court dismissed the claim in its entirety, but not before a lengthy trial that provided a rare glimpse into the private life of a publicity-shy and exceedingly wealthy Persian Gulf dynasty.

The businessman said the agreement had called for Sheikh Hamad to pay $1.5 million for each meeting with 26 Bollywood stars plus a $500,000 bonus payment for every third meeting.

He then sued Sheikh Hamad for breach of contract and damages of over $33 million, alleging that he had pulled out of the oral agreement after paying only $3 million. The court ruled last year that the case could be tried in England instead of Bahrain because the oral agreements were made between two people in London who have business connections in the city.

Testifying in November, Sheikh Hamad, dressed in an olive brown suit, confessed to having a love for 1970s-era Bollywood stars, but denied promising millions of dollars to meet them.

“I have all of these favorite stars whom I really love,” he said passionately, raising his voice for the first time from his normal soft-spoken tone.

“I mean, I do have some very special ones, some sentimental feelings, personal tastes, I do have,” he continued in broken English. “But in general, all of them, they are the same.” He added that he would keep his personal favorites to himself.

Sheikh Hamad asserted that Mr. Ahmed had initially told him the private meetings would cost around $50,000, but that after introducing him to several Bollywood celebrities he started to make “unwarranted demands for very large sums of money.”

After meeting four Bollywood stars and paying $3 million in fees, he felt that he was being taken advantage of and said that he had informed Mr. Ahmed he should not arrange any further meetings.

According to Mr. Ahmed’s account, the sheikh told him that his family had taken over his funds because they did not approve of his expensive Bollywood passion, but that he went on to meet 15 other Bollywood stars through another agent.

“Mr. Saffy, the sheikh’s assistant, menacingly said that I would be in ‘big trouble’ if I did not leave the sheikh alone after it became clear he would not pay,” Mr. Ahmed said, adding that he had faced threats and intimidation since his lawyers sent their first letter to the sheikh.

Sheikh Hamad said in a statement after Friday’s judgment, “It was with a heavy heart that I was forced to defend myself against this claim, since I had considered Mr. Ahmed to be a friend whom I trusted, and had always treated him with generosity and kindness.”

“After my dad passed away, he was an element in my life,” he said, in reference to Mr. Ahmed. “I wanted to get to know him as a brother, as a new friend in my life. So, we started like this. And he was very much aware of this matter.”

That sentiment comes across in a text message submitted by the sheikh’s lawyers to the court as evidence.

The text, sent by the sheikh after a meeting with Mr. Ahmed, reads: “Dear brother thank u so much for kind visit and for making me happy love u always brother al the best in our new contract see u on Thursday. H”

To which Mr. Ahmed replies: “U r welcome always dear bro. As I promised always will do my best efforts to make u happy inshalla. And promise u again will do my best to guarantee our new deal more happy and more perfect of meeting Mr.super star Salman Khan as you wish dream to become true as well same first deal of Mr. Sharokhan. Promise.”

Although the sheikh makes a reference to a “contract” he has denied entering into a legally binding agreement with Mr. Ahmed or giving him a list of the names of 26 film stars he wanted to meet.

“I do not accept that there was ever any contractual arrangement between us, let alone one that was exclusive and could never be terminated,” the sheikh said in his defense statement submitted to the court.

Mr. Ahmed’s lawyers argued that the absence of a written contract is not relevant in the context of an agreement made between two people in the Arab world.

“It is in fact a thing called haram to break your word to someone; it is sinful to break your word, and there is a much greater tradition of oral agreements than we would contemplate in our business life orientated west,” Mr. Ahmed’s lawyer Stephen Nathan said in his opening submissions.

On Friday Leigh Crestohl, another of Mr. Ahmed’s lawyers, said they would seek to appeal the decision, “which our client believes is grossly unfair” and which “has not sufficiently taken into account the business practices in the Middle East, where invoices, receipts and contracts are not always used.”

In testimony Sheikh Hamad’s lawyers had called Mr. Ahmed a “cynical entrepreneurial businessman” and accused him of taking undue advantage of “a trusting and vulnerable individual” by exploiting his “naïveté” and “generosity.”

That naïveté was put forward in court when the sheikh explained that he intended to meet the Bollywood stars through a “friendly relationship” with Mr. Ahmed that he would pay for in advance in the form of “gifts.”

“I never engaged with any kind of business activities during my dad’s lifetime,” he said, noting that he had never made a bank transfer. “So that’s what I was at that moment: all friendly, friendly dealings.

“It was only when my dad passed away, I have been, you know, exposed to these kinds of things,” he said. “Before that, my dad was looking after me.”

The sheikh told the high court that he had “a people-pleasing addiction,” asserting that one of his priorities in his dealings with Mr. Ahmed was to please him, which was why he gave him additional gifts.

Suitcases packed with bundles of 50-pound notes were submitted to the court as evidence.

“He inveigled himself into Sheikh Hamad’s affection,” another of the sheikh’s lawyers, Andrew Hochhauster, said of the claimant. “He sought to characterize an informal arrangement that was based on friendship and trust into some kind of hard-nosed business deal that it was never intended to be and it never was.”

Anna Schaverien contributed reporting.

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