Nigerian Oil Tycoon ordered to pay British ex-wife,£17.5M in divorce settlement

Nigerian 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 a 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.
Sky News