Oil tycoon Michael Prest has won his lengthy legal battle to cut his ex-wife's payout
An oil tycoon who used African law to attempt to strip his ex-wife of a
£17.5million divorce payout has won a landmark case to slash the money by
£9million.
Multi-millionaire Michael Prest, 50, one of Britain's most successful
black businessman, originally claimed under 'native' African law his oil
company didn't belong to him. And despite being slammed for his 'ingenious and
dishonest' attempts to conceal his huge wealth from the divorce courts, he has
won his marathon legal fight.
One of the country’s top family judges said that 'there were almost no
lengths to which he was not prepared to go' in his fight to cut down his
49-year-old ex-wife Yasmin’s divorce settlement. Although she insisted he was
worth 'tens if not hundreds of millions of pounds' and asked for an award of
£30.4 million, he was adamant he was worse than penniless, with net debts of
£48 million, and said his ex was entitled to only just over £2 million.
Costly divorce: Yasmin Prest outside London's Appeal Court in an earlier court appearance
After a marathon dispute that ran up 'astronomical' legal costs of more
than £3 million - and during which Mr Prest 'repeatedly flouted' his duty to
fully and frankly disclose his assets - he was last year ordered to give his
ex-wife money and assets worth £17.5 million. However, in a ruling today that
award was cut by up to £9 million by the Court of Appeal.
In a majority decision - which exposed a gaping rift between family and
commercial lawyers - the court ruled the divorce judge had been wrong to
'pierce the corporate veil' and award Mrs Prest six London properties owned by
companies that her ex-husband was said to control. Family law specialist, Lord
Justice Thorpe, said: 'Once the marriage broke down, the husband resorted to an
array of strategies, of varying degrees of ingenuity and dishonesty, in order
to deprive his wife of her accustomed affluence. 'Amongst them is the
invocation of company law measures in an endeavour to achieve his irresponsible
and selfish ends. If the law permits him so to do it defeats the Family
Division judge’s overriding duty to achieve fairness'.
However, his powerful dissenting judgment was overruled by Lord Justice
Rimer, who said the divorce judge had simply been 'wrong' to equate the
companies that owned the properties with Mr Prest and to regard their assets as
his. Even though Mr Prest had been found to be in control of the companies, the
divorce judge simply had no power to find that he was personally entitled to
the properties they owned or to pierce the corporate veil and award them to his
ex-wife.
Lord Justice Patten, who had the casting vote, agreed the appeal - which
was brought by three companies that own a portfolio of flats and houses in
London worth £9m - should be allowed. Issuing a resounding warning to wealthy
couples, the judge said that those tempted to transfer assets to companies for
wealth protection or tax avoidance purposes 'cannot ignore the legal
consequences of their actions in less happy times'. The highly educated couple
married in 1993 and had four children, now all teenagers, and enjoyed an
'extravagant lifestyle' until their split in 2008.
Mr Prest told the divorce judge he needed £800,000-a-year to live on and
his ex said she required £730,000-a-year to keep herself and the children in
the style to which they were accustomed. Despite his claims that he was £48m in
debt, Mr Justice Moylan found last year that Mr Prest was worth
'conservatively...at least £37.5m' and had been treating the court proceedings
'as a game' to defeat or minimise his ex-wife entitlements. Mr Prest, who was
named as one of the three most influential black men in Britain in 2007, was
also ordered to pay maintenance of £24,000-a-year for each of his four
children, along with their private school fees and medical bills.
Lawyers for the three companies that bought the appeal insisted that
their assets did not belong to Mr Prest but are 'held in trust' for his
children and the children of his four siblings in Africa, under Nigerian
Itsekiri customary law. Mr Prest, the court heard, received a gift of £10,000
'seed money' from his Nigerian father before he died in 1992, and he used that
cash as the foundation stone on which he built his oil and property empire.
Under customary law in Nigeria, his father’s death left Mr Prest as head
of his family, with a responsibility to use his late father’s money to look
after his siblings and their children, his legal team argued. However Mrs
Prest’s lawyers have always insisted that the companies, and the assets they
hold, are '100% owned and controlled' by her ex-husband and that they are
effectively his 'alter ego.'
Daily Mail UK
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