Prince faces £1m bill over ‘aborted’ deal on mansion

A BRITISH couple has been handed more than £1 million compensation after suing a billionaire prince for pulling out of a deal to buy their £5 million home.

Prince Arthur Eze, a Nigerian oil baron, exchanged contracts with Richard and Deborah Conway on their seven-bedroom mansion in north London in August 2015.

He agreed to pay them £5million, but the deal was “aborted” before completion, London’s High Court heard.

Mr and Mrs Conway went on to sell the property to someone else for £4.2million and later moved into a new £2.9million home in, Cambridgeshire. They sued Prince Eze, claiming damages over the lower price that their house sold for and the extra costs they faced in pushing through their move.

The prince’s legal team claimed the sale contract was “void” because a middleman in the transaction had arranged a “secret commission”. Prince Eze had said he did not know the middleman before he approached him and “did not trouble himself ” about the finer details. He did not view the house before making an offer and denied breach of contract, counter-suing the couple for return of his £500,000 deposit.

Judge Andrew Keyser awarded the Conways more than £1million in compensation for the losses and expenses caused by the prince’s pull-out.

Prince Eze, 62, is the founder of Atlas Oranto Petroleum, an oil exploration company with holdings throughout West Africa, and is reputedly worth £2 billion.