Nigerian oil and banking tycoon Michael Prest wins again as St Kitts court voids his bank's $120,000 fine

Nigerian oil trader and banker Michael J. Prest has secured another court victory against the regulatory apparatus of St Kitts and Nevis after the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court of Appeal ruled on June 2 that the Regulator of International Banking had no lawful authority to impose fines and penalties totalling $120,000 against Bank of Nevis International Limited, the financial institution Prest has owned and operated from the Caribbean island since the late 1990s.

The judgment, which came five years after the disputed regulatory actions were first taken, found that the lower court judge had erred in proceeding on the basis that all parties had agreed the Banking Regulator's authority derived from the Financial Services Regulatory Commission Act. The Court of Appeal clarified that no such consensus existed and that the regulator had in fact relied on the Nevis International Banking Ordinance and the Nevis International Banking Regulations as the source of his authority — a distinction that proved fatal to the state's position.

At the heart of the case was a series of letters issued in June 2021, including correspondence restricting the activities of BONI's shareholder and ultimate beneficial owners, and a June 25, 2021 letter imposing the $120,000 in fines and penalties for what regulators described as BONI's alleged delay in providing information concerning Prest's appointment as the bank's chief executive. Prest challenged both the restriction orders and the fines, arguing from the outset that the regulators had no statutory power to issue them.

The June 2 ruling is not the first time Prest has prevailed against Nevis's regulatory establishment. In February 2023, High Court Justice Patrick Thompson Jr. quashed the Cease and Desist Orders and the fines initially issued against BONI, declaring that neither the Regulator of the Nevis Financial Services Department nor the Regulator of International Banking had the authority to restrict Prest's activities at the bank. The 2023 ruling, reported across Nigerian and Caribbean media, was described by sources close to Prest as a landmark vindication for investors who had faced what they characterised as regulators acting beyond their statutory mandate.

The regulatory conflict that produced both rulings traces back to a commercial dispute between Prest and Mark Kucher, a Canadian national, that erupted publicly in 2021. In 2018, Prest had proposed that Kucher acquire a 40 percent stake in BONI through an investment agreement between their respective holding vehicles. Under the agreement formalised in April 2019, Kucher would pay $2,530,000 and receive 49.9 percent of the bank's shares, along with a directorship and the role of chief investment officer. Kucher transferred the funds in December 2019. Prest maintains the money was used for the purposes the parties agreed under the investment agreement and denies it was misappropriated. Kucher filed a complaint with the Royal St Christopher and Nevis Police Force's White Collar Crime Unit in 2021, which eventually led to charges of fraudulent conversion and an Interpol warrant for Prest's arrest.

The state's prosecution of Prest and the parallel regulatory actions against BONI have been contested at every level of the Caribbean court system for the better part of five years. In February 2026, the Privy Council — the federation's highest court of final appeal — declined to hear Prest's application for permission to appeal a separate Court of Appeal ruling that upheld the criminal proceedings against him, a decision the St Kitts and Nevis government described as a decisive legal victory. Prest and his legal team maintained that the Privy Council's refusal on that procedural question was not a vindication of the underlying charges.

Prest, who has had a home in Nevis since 1996 and is described as one of the island's larger private employers, built his business career as a protégé of the late commodities trading king Marc Rich, becoming a respected figure in international independent oil trading before expanding into banking and regional investment. He is the CEO of Petrodel Resources Limited and controls BONI, and has separately been fighting to recover a 24.8 percent stake in Zambia's Investrust Bank that was wiped out when regulators pushed the bank into compulsory liquidation in 2024 — a fight in which he has also won significant early court rulings.

The June 2 Court of Appeal ruling has intensified discussion in Nevis about the proportionality of the state's years-long campaign against Prest and the potential financial exposure it carries for the federation. Legal observers and commentators in the Caribbean have noted publicly that the accumulation of judicial corrections against the state's regulatory and prosecutorial positions raises serious questions — and that a substantial damages claim against the government is being actively considered. Any such claim, if pursued and successful, would fall on the public purse of one of the Caribbean's smallest sovereign states.

The state has maintained throughout that its prosecution of Prest follows the proper legal processes and that the Privy Council's refusal of his appeal confirms the legitimacy of the criminal proceedings against him.