Russian billionaire accuses Sotheby’s of taking part in elaborate art fraud; auction house claims he has ‘good reason to be angry with himself’
- Lawyers for Dmitry Rybolovlev claim Sotheby’s executives helped an art broker defraud him out of tens of millions of dollars through sales of famous works
- Rybolovlev was ‘trying to make an innocent party pay for what somebody else did to him’, a lawyer for Sotheby’s says
Sotheby’s defended itself at a trial in New York against accusations that it helped defraud a Russian oligarch out of tens of millions of dollars, saying it knew nothing of wrongdoing by an art buyer who advised the billionaire on buying works by famed artists such as Amedeo Modigliani and Leonardo da Vinci.
Sotheby’s lawyer Sara Shudofsky told a jury in an opening statement in Manhattan federal court that billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev was “trying to make an innocent party pay for what somebody else did to him”.
Shudofsky said the fertiliser magnate, a savvy businessman who has run highly successful businesses, had “good reason to be angry with himself” after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy art masterpieces without taking “the most basic steps” to protect himself from a broker who cheated him.
“Sotheby’s didn’t know anything about those lies,” Shudofsky said. “Sotheby’s had no knowledge of, and didn’t participate in, any misconduct.”
She spoke after Rybolovlev’s lawyer, Daniel Kornstein, insisted that a London-based Sotheby’s executive was part of a group of executives who were in on an elaborate fraud.