Displaying items by tag: Lawsuit

On a sunny morning in late February, Yves Bouvier, a Swiss art dealer, flew into Nice and drove 20 miles along the French Riviera to Monaco to meet his top client, Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev. Bouvier had come to work out the final payment for Mark Rothko’s No. 6 (Violet, Green and Red), which Rybolovlev had agreed to buy for €140 million back in August. Bouvier, 51, entered the lobby of the cream-colored, belle époque mansion where Rybolovlev’s penthouse apartment overlooks Monte Carlo’s yacht-filled marina.

Assuming business as usual, Bouvier approached a man he thought was one of Rybolovlev’s bodyguards.

Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev had decided to send off a tough 2014 in New York City. The Monaco-based billionaire had been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons after a Swiss judge awarded his ex-wife Elena $4.5 billion in their seven-year divorce battle. An avid art collector, Rybolovlev decided to spend New Year’s Eve with Sandy Heller, Steve Cohen’s well-known art advisor. As they exchanged war stories, one particular tale made his jaw drop: it was about a beautiful "Nude" by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani that Cohen sold for a juicy $93.5 million to a mystery buyer. What Heller didn’t know was that behind the veil of anonymity stood Rybolovlev, fuming internally on that December 31. Rybolovlev had paid his trusted friend and art broker Yves Bouvier $118 million for the piece, more than $22 million above what he just found out the market value should’ve been, including the fee.

Manhattan’s federal court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Elizabeth Bilinski and 19 other collectors against the Keith Haring Foundation over its refusal to authenticate 111 works.

According to the court papers, Bilinski submitted works she owned by Haring, which she and the other plaintiffs had acquired from Angelo Moreno, a friend of the artist, to the foundation in 2007. But the foundation, without giving a reason, rejected the pieces as “not authentic.” When Bilinski submitted what she considered more evidence of authenticity, including a statement from Moreno, the foundation refused to reconsider its decision. The collectors said that a forensic report indicated that the art could have been created during Haring’s lifetime, and that experts at Sotheby’s believed the works to be authentic, but the auction house refused to sell them without the foundation’s approval.

Elizabeth Taylor jewels are back in the news.

Christie's 2011 sale of the collection of Elizabeth Taylor was a landmark event celebrating the iconic Holllywood star's life with back-to-back auctions of her art, fashion, and jewels. The evening jewels sale alone achieved $115.9 million, the most valuable jewelry auction in history and seven new world auction records were established.

But now it seems that some of those "record" results have become a royal embarrassment.

The heirs of Nazi-era Jewish art dealers say they have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. suing Germany and a German museum for the return of a medieval treasure trove worth an estimated $226 million.

The suit, which attorneys said was filed late Monday in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., is the latest salvo in a long-running campaign by the heirs for return of the so-called Welfenschatz, or Guelph Treasure — which they claim their ancestors sold under Nazi pressure.

The IRS taxed a Texas tycoon $40.6 million on the false belief he had taken ownership of a treasure trove of art including works by Picasso, Monet and van Gogh, his widow claims in court. Barbara B. Allbritton sued the United States for herself and the estate of her husband, self-made millionaire Joe L. Allbritton, on Jan. 30 in Federal Court.

Joe Allbritton died in 2012 at 87, ending a life fit for the big screen. After a stint in the Navy during World War II, and graduating from Baylor College of Law, Allbritton took out a $5,000 loan to buy land outside Houston. He made a nice profit selling the land, which was used to build a freeway from Houston to Galveston, and founded San Jacinto Savings and Loan.

The architect Zaha Hadid has settled her case against the New York Review of Books and critic Martin Filler, and donated the settlement money to an undisclosed charity that “protects and champions labor rights,” dezeen magazine reported on Tuesday. Ms. Hadid had filed the libel suit in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan last August.

In his June review of Rowan Moore’s “Why We Build: Power and Desire in Architecture,” Mr. Filler wrote that Ms. Hadid “unashamedly disavowed any responsibility, let alone concern” for an “estimated one thousand laborers who have perished” while building the Al Wakrah stadium she designed for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

The US Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum in the case of the ownership of Lucas Cranach the Elder's paintings "Adam" and "Eve" (both circa 1530). The artworks originally belonged to Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who in 1940 was forced to flee the Netherlands following the Nazi invasion.

The case, which has been in federal court since 2007, was originally dismissed in the museum's favor in 2012. Goudstikker's daughter-in-law, Marei Von Saher, got a second chance last June, when a judge ruled that the pursuit of her claims did not conflict with US federal policy (see Norton Simon's Nazi-Looted Adam and Eve to Head Back to Court).

The Andy Warhol Foundation's recent lawsuit to block the $20 million sale of an allegedly stolen Elizabeth Taylor portrait has sent shockwaves through the Pop-Art icon's family.

Though the foundation says their namesake's former bodyguard, Agusto Bugarin, stole "Liz" and then waited decades to sell it as potential challengers died off, two of Warhol's nephews came to Bugarin's defense in exclusive interviews with Courthouse News.

Like the rest of Andy's family, James and George Warhola have kept their Slovakian surname intact. Unlike their cousin, Donald Warhola, however, James and George have no association with the foundation. Four years ago, Donald took over for his late father, John, as trustee of an arts organization created in Warhol's will.

The billionaire Ronald Perelman's lawsuit accusing New York City art gallery owner Larry Gagosian of defrauding him into overpaying for a Cy Twombly painting has been thrown out by a unanimous state appeals court.

Despite being a "sophisticated" plaintiff, Perelman "conducted no due diligence" to determine the value of Twombly's "Leaving Paphos Ringed With Waves" before agreeing to buy it for $10.5 million, the Manhattan court said on Thursday.