Russian billionaire loses art fraud suit against Sotheby's

NEW YORK

A Russian billionaire art collector lost a legal fight with Sotheby’s on Jan. 30, when a U.S. jury sided with the auction house in a lawsuit over claims that the businessman was ripped off while assembling a trove of works that included a famous painting known as “the lost Leonardo.”

A New York federal jury deliberated for a few hours before reaching a decision in Dmitry Rybolovlev's case against Sotheby's, The New York Times reported. The fertilizer titan alleged that the auction house helped a Swiss art dealer cheat him out of over $160 million by quietly imposing huge markups on works that he acquired. Tearing up when he testified earlier this month, he said he'd not only lost money but trust.

“Today’s ruling reaffirms Sotheby’s long-standing commitment to upholding the highest standards of integrity, ethics and professionalism in all aspects of the art market," the auction house said in a statement after the verdict.

Rybolovlev, 57, spent $2 billion from 2002 to 2014 to build a prime art collection featuring works by such giants as Picasso, Rodin, Modigliani, Klimt, Magritte and Leonardo da Vinci. For help finding and acquiring art, he turned to Swiss broker Yves Bouvier.

He alleged that Bouvier hugely padded the prices that Rybolovlev was paying and pocketing the difference, along with his agreed-upon 2 percent commission.

Rybolovlev accused Bouvier of fraud involving 38 artworks. Only four were at issue in the trial, including da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi, ” a portrait of Jesus Christ. Its whereabouts were unknown for centuries.

Rybolovlev’s lawyers said Bouvier bought it from Sotheby’s for $83 million, then sold it to the billionaire a day later for over $127 million.

After the verdict, Bouvier said in a statement: “The New York court proceedings were a surreal charade in which people argued over an alleged fraud that had never happened.”

His Geneva-based lawyers, David Bitton and Yves Klein, said the trial's outcome was “no surprise.”

“It would have been absurd for the New York court to find the existence of a fraud that no other authority has ever admitted, despite multiple proceedings initiated around the world, notably in Singapore, Hong Kong, Monaco and Geneva,” they said in a statement.