When it comes to high-value divorce financial settlement claims you can’t get much bigger than the current hearings related to the Aga Khan.

The fourth Aga Khan is 75-year-old Prince Karim Al Husseini. He is a British citizen, Swiss taxpayer, French resident and currently embroiled in divorce proceedings involving a £50 million payment to his estranged second wife Begum Inaara Aga Khan, a German-born former pop star, 48.

A lower court had originally ruled that Begum Inaara should receive only £10 million, yet, in 2011, an appeal court ruled that as the Aga Khan had been at fault in the breakdown of the relationship he should make the French record-breaking divorce settlement payment of £50m to his ex-wife. This sum was based on the reasoning that they had enjoyed two years as a married couple before the split.

However, in a move which has baffled some family law commentators, his divorce solicitors have now applied, on his behalf, to take the case to the highest French court, the Cour de Cassation.

In terms of wealth the settlement sum seems rather paltry when you consider that the current Aga Khan is estimated to be worth in the region of £8 billion and that, when the couple first split up in 2004, his estranged spouse sought £166 million.

The latest legal retaliation move will stall the process for at least another year and perhaps up to seven, according to The Telegraph.

Meanwhile, media speculation had been rife that the Aga Khan had been planning to marry for a third time to mother-of-four Beatrice von der Schulenburg, the divorced wife of City recruitment company head Jeffrey von der Schulenburg.

The Cour de Cassation now has the power to decide whether the most recent ruling was legal and, if it can’t be decided as such, there could be a new full appeals trial which would certainly mean further delays to a full divorce settlement.