Nigerian Oil magnate, Michael
Prest has lost a legal battle with his estranged English wife Yasmin over a
£17.5m divorce settlement.
The Supreme Court judgement
marks the latest round of a lengthy legal cash dispute between the couple over
the oil tycoon's fortune.
In October, the Court of
Appeal ruled that a High Court judge had earlier wrongly ordered Mr Prest to
transfer properties, worth millions of pounds and held in the names of
companies he controlled, to Mrs Prest.
She then asked the Supreme
Court - the highest court in the UK - to assess the case, where seven judges on
Wednesday unanimously allowed Mrs Prest's appeal.
Mr Prest, founder of
Nigerian energy company Petrodel Resources, claimed to be worth about £48m. But
Mrs Prest said he was worth much more than than that - "tens if not
hundreds of millions" of pounds.
She said after the decision:
"I'm delighted and relieved that the
Supreme Court has ruled as it did.'m grateful to the judges for the care and
thought they gave the case."It is more a case of satisfaction and relief
than celebration."None of this would have been necessary if Michael had
been sensible and played fair."
Judges heard the couple - in
their early 50s - married in 1993, spent most of their time in London, had
properties in Nigeria and the Caribbean and lived to a "very high
standard".
Lawyers said the new ruling
could have significant implications for divorcing couples.
The challenge concerned the
position of a number of companies belonging to the Petrodel Group which are
"wholly owned and controlled" by Mr Prest.
One of the companies is the
legal owner of five residential properties in the UK and another is the legal
owner of two more.
The question the Supreme
Court had to tackle was whether the court had power to order the transfer of
the seven properties to Mrs Prest, given that they legally belonged to his
companies, not him.
Allowing Mrs Prest's appeal,
the court declared that the seven disputed properties vested in the companies
were ones that Mr Prest was "entitled, either in possession or in
reversion".
Mr Michael Prest, 51, and
his wife, who met twenty years ago in London, enjoyed the fruits of the fortune
he amassed, sending their son and three daughters to public school, and
alternating their time between a multi-million pound house in London and homes
in the Caribbean and Nigeria, where he was born the son of an Itsekiri chief
before moving to the UK as a child.
After their separation in
2008 Mr Prest, who lives in Monaco, refused to pay the multi-million pound
settlement to his 50-year-old ex-wife - a British-born IT consultant who has
dual Nigerian nationality like her husband. The High Court, describing the
husband as a manipulative and a “wholly unreliable witness”, ordered the
transfer of 13 properties from his companies as part payment
Mr Prest was not in court to
hear the judgement being delivered.
Source : Sky News
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