Court orders Eze, Nigerian billionaire, to pay £1m to British couple

A UK court has ordered Arthur Eze, a Nigerian businessman, to pay £1m in damages to Richard and Deborah Conway, a British couple, for pulling out of a deal to buy their seven-bed London mansion.

The couple had reached an agreement of £5 million with Eze who reportedly paid 10 percent deposit.

When Eze failed to fulfil the terms of the agreement, the couple sold the property to another buyer for £4.2m and later moved into a new £2.9m home in Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire.

According to MailOnline, the Conways, who claimed they were left stranded on the property ladder when Eze pulled out of buying their mansion, sued him for £1.8m.

They claimed damages over the lower price their house sold for and the extra costs they faced in pushing through their move to the country.

Andrew Keyser, the presiding judge, awarded them £1m in compensation for the losses and expenses caused by Eze’s pull-out.

Matthew Collings, counsel of the Conways, told the judge that Eze’s failure to complete the purchase of the couple’s Mill Hill home forced them to take out an expensive bridging loan.

But Eze’s legal team said the sale contract was void because the middleman had arranged a “secret commission” to secure the deal.

He said he thought something “funny was going on” and denied that a “drastic fall in oil prices” prompted his decision to pull out of the deal.

Eze told the court he had good intentions to buy the house but was concerned he was not receiving the proper information about what was going on.

But the judge said the contract to buy the house was valid and ought to have been completed.

“Prince Eze had signed the contract,” said the judge, while the middleman who brokered the deal “certainly did have the authority to instruct the solicitors to exchange contracts” on the prince’s behalf.

The judge said that Eze’s £500,000 deposit would count towards the damages payment.

Eze is the chairman of Atlas Petroleum International and Oranto Petroleum, a Nigerian privately-held, Africa-focused oil exploration and production group.