A landmark divorce case focusing on assets held by spouses' companies is set to go to the Supreme Court, following a Court of Appeal (CoA) ruling last month.

The Prest case centres around the question of whether companies belonging to spouses can be ordered to pay assets in a settlement.

Lawyers acting for Yasmin Prest, the ex-wife of oil tycoon Michael Prest, are contesting the decision handed down by the CoA on 26 October, which ruled that companies owned by Mr Prest would not be made to hand over assets totalling £17.5m to his ex-wife, in a judgment critics said would enable wealthy spouses to protect their assets in divorce disputes.

The appeal will be led by One Hare Court's Richard Todd QC and Stephen Trowell, who have been instructed by Farrer & Co's Jeremy Posnansky QC on behalf of Mrs Prest.

The CoA ruling came after Mr Justice Moylan ordered Mr Prest to hand over the £17.5 sum last year. Acknowledging that Mr Prest was unlikely to comply, given his failure "to provide full and frank disclosure", Moylan ordered 14 of the businessman's properties in the UK and abroad to transfer assets to Mrs Prest as part-payment of the award.

That ruling was overturned last month when the companies won an appeal against Mr Justice Moylan's ruling, on the basis that the assets belonged to the companies, which are separate legal entities to Mr Prest.

The October ruling divided the CoA bench two to one, with commercial judges Lord Justice Patten and Lord Justice Rimer finding in favour of the companies against Lord Justice Thorpe, who in his dissenting judgment said that if the law permitted Mr Prest to retain assets in this way "it defeats the Family Division judge's overriding duty to achieve a fair result".

In his ruling, Lord Justice Rimer argued against Lord Justice Thorpe, saying there were "no primary findings justifying the conclusion other than that the properties were part of the assets of, and belonged beneficially to, the companies that respectively controlled them".

West End law firm Jeffrey Green Russell (JGR) instructed Queen Elizabeth Buildings' Tim Amos QC for Mr Prest's companies, Petrodel Resources, Petrodel Upstream and Vermont Petroleum. JGR did not comment on the latest development, or whether the firm had been retained as an adviser by the companies.

Commenting on the October decision, Posnansky said: "It's a great pity that years of case law and practice which have enabled family law judges to do justice between divorcing couples have been overturned by this non-unanimous decision of the CoA. Devious men who want to avoid making fair provision for their wives will rejoice at this decision."

Withers family partner James Copson added: "The decision is a disappointing one for many wives who confront on divorce a tangled web of companies used to shelter their husbands' wealth.

"This ruling puts the genie back in the bottle. The Court has effectively sanctioned for other cases the use of what could be perceived by the general public to be a cheat's charter."

Click here for the CoA judgment.