Tuesday, February 03, 2009

"... has sent a chill down the collective spines of the major auction houses"

Judd Tully has a piece in the February Art+Auction on the Christie's decision I wrote about back in November here.

I'm quoted in the piece as follows:

"The logic of this decision, says Donn Zaretsky of the New York law firm John Silberman Associates, means that 'any subsequent buyer — no matter how remote in time and no matter how many intervening transactions have occurred — could potentially bring a fraud claim against an auction house as market maker.'"

The story notes that Christie’s has filed a motion for reargument, on the ground that New York law "is clear. . . that a stranger to a transaction has no standing to bring a fraud claim, unless the defendant actually intended to defraud that third party [through his reliance] on its misrepresentation."