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Bouvier Affair

The Bouvier Affair was a number of international lawsuits that started in 2015, and subsequent events. The lawsuits, initiated by Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev,[1] allege that Swiss art shipper and dealer Yves Bouvier defrauded him by misrepresenting the original cost of art works and subsequently overcharging them.[2] The affair has played out in courts in Monaco, Switzerland, France, the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Yves Bouvier

Since beginning legal proceedings against Bouvier in 2015, authorities have dismissed lawsuits filed by Rybolovlev in Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, Monaco, and Geneva.[3] The US has also dropped its investigations into Bouvier.[4]

In December 2023, the Geneva Public Prosecutor's Office closed the criminal investigation against Bouvier, citing that it did not find "any evidence allowing sufficient suspicion to be raised against the defendants (Bouvier)."[5]

In the same month, both parties reached an agreement and set aside all their remaining legal disputes in all jurisdictions. The settlement was described by Bouvier's lawyers as a "complete victory."[6]

Rybolovlev, who initiated the lawsuits against Bouvier, has since been under criminal investigations in Monaco, Switzerland, and France in relation to the case. In Monaco, he was arrested and investigated for allegedly instrumentalizing and corrupting public officials to influence the case against Bouvier.[7]

Background

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Prior fraud allegations

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Before 2015, Bouvier was primarily known in the market as a leading art dealer[8] and curator through his company, Natural Le Coultre, and as a major shareholder and promoter of the freeport concept.

Lorette Shefner

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In 2008, Bouvier became embroiled in a legal case involving Lorette Shefner, a Canadian collector. Shefner's family claims that she was the victim of a complex fraud, whereby she was persuaded to sell a Soutine painting called Le Bœuf écorché at a price far below market value, only to see the work later sold to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. for a much higher price.[9][10] Although Bouvier is not the primary defendant, court documents from 2013 accuse him of having acted "in concert" with several experts "to disguise the true ownership" of pieces of art in order to defraud the Shefner estate.[11]

Wolfgang Beltracchi forgery scandal

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In 2013, it was revealed that Bouvier was implicated in the notorious case of Wolfgang Beltracchi, a German forger who was convicted in 2011 of having defrauded a number of collectors, including Daniel Filipacchi, of millions of dollars.[12] According to German newspaper Die Zeit, Bouvier founded Galerie Jacques de la Béraudière in 2008 together with art dealer Jacques de la Béraudière, who played a key role in the Beltracchi scandal.[13] This and his ownership of an off-shore entity called Diva Fine Arts led to Bouvier also being connected to the Beltracchi case. He denied any connection to Beltracchi and dismissed media coverage as uninformed speculation.[14]

 
Dmitry Rybolovlev

Catherine Hutin-Blay

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In March 2015, Catherine Hutin-Blay, the step daughter of Pablo Picasso from his second wife Jacqueline, filed a complaint alleging that 58 separate works had been stolen from her. Hutin-Blay alleged that the works were stolen from a store in a suburb of Paris that is run by Art Transit, a Bouvier family company.[15][16] It later emerged that Bouvier had sold two of the allegedly stolen Picasso paintings to Rybolovlev in 2013.[17] Rybolovlev handed over the paintings to French authorities in 2015.[18]

Bouvier denied any involvement in the thefts, but in September 2015 he was indicted by French authorities on charges of theft in relation to the discovery of two of the works by Picasso that Hutin-Blay alleged were stolen from her.[19] In court, Bouvier produced a document showing that he paid $8 million to a fund in Liechtenstein, of which Hutin-Blay was the beneficiary, and asserted that this was for the two paintings.[20] Hutin-Blay has disputed this, arguing that the payment concerned a matter unrelated to the thefts.[20]

Following several rounds of interviews with lawyers in Geneva, the case was dismissed in 2015,[21] but reopened in 2016 as Bouvier's associate Olivier Thomas came under renewed scrutiny.[22]

Allegations of money laundering

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In late 2015, it emerged that Bouvier has been investigated by the authorities in Liechtenstein on suspicion of money laundering, in one instance related to a forged Max Ernst work that is alleged to have been created by Wolfgang Beltracchi. However, Liechtenstein suspended its investigation in December 2015.[21]

In September 2017, Bouvier was under criminal investigation by Swiss authorities amid allegations that he may have evaded more than 100 million Euros in taxes related to his cross-border art dealings.[23]

Case

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The Hutin-Blay case coincided with a separate case involving allegations made by Rybolovlev that forms the main part of the Yves Bouvier Affair. Beginning in 2003, with the help of Yves Bouvier, Dmitry Rybolovlev accumulated one of the most spectacular art collections of modern times.[24] Rybolovlev's art collection includes paintings by Paul Gauguin, Auguste Rodin, Amedeo Modigliani (Nude on a Blue Cushion), Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Mark Rothko (No. 6).[25][26] In addition to these seminal works, Rybolovlev also purchased the painting Wasserschlangen II (or Water Serpents), by Gustav Klimt, though it was subsequently sold.[27]

Monaco

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Arrest

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On 25 February 2015, Bouvier was indicted in Monaco on charges of fraud and complicity in money laundering.[28] The charges followed a criminal complaint made by Rybolovlev's family trust alleging that Bouvier had systematically overcharged it over a period of 10 years to acquire paintings.[29][30][31] Specifically, the Russian billionaire's lawyers accused Bouvier of having misrepresented his role in obtaining 38 artworks for $2 billion and having thus defrauded Rybolovlev to the tune of a little more than $1 billion,[17] using offshore companies to disguise his gains.[32][33]

Bouvier has denied the claims stating that he presented himself as the seller of the artwork, rather than an adviser, and that Rybolovlev was aware of the extra markup he earned on top of the fees.[34] In 2017, he filed a counter-complaint against Rybolovlev in Switzerland, accusing the latter of allegedly luring him to Monaco to be detained by the Principality's police. In October 2024, the Swiss Federal Office of the Attorney General (OAG) declared Rybolovlev not guilty and closed the criminal proceedings against him as “no suspicion justifying an indictment has been established.”[35][36]

In 2019, the criminal charges of fraud and money laundering against Bouvier were dismissed after the court found that all investigations against him were "conducted in a biased and unfair way."[37]

Subsequent developments

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After HSBC Monaco provided a letter during the police investigation that erroneously stated that Bouvier and a co-defendant, Tania Rappo (with whom he was accused of conspiring to launder money from his art deal proceeds) held joint accounts at the bank, Bouvier called for an investigation into that matter.[38] HSBC stated the error was "unintentional and clerical."[38]

In 2017 French[39] and Monegasque press reported that Rybolovlev arranged substantial inducements to various other members of the Monegasque establishment, including the judiciary, law enforcement and members of government, to have Bouvier arrested an investigated as part of his dispute with the art dealer.[40] The controversy led to the resignation and subsequent arrest of Monaco's Justice Minister, Philippe Narmino, and the arrest of Rybolovlev.

Dubbed "Monacogate" by the press,[41] the scandal unfolded with the disclosure of text messages from Rybolovlev's lawyer Tania Bersheda, which showed efforts to sway the legal proceedings and orchestrate the arrest of Bouvier in 2015.[42] The text messages revealed that days before the arrest of Bouvier, Rybolovlev had hosted Narmino and his family and HSBC Monaco managing director Gérard Cohen at his residence in Gstaad, Switzerland. The messages also revealed that Rybolovlev had offered lavish gifts and dinners to members of Monaco's police force and that Bersheda had been in close contact with the officers in charge of the investigation into Bouvier, Director of the Judicial Police Christophe Haget and deputy Frédéric Fusari before and during his arrest in Monaco.

On that basis, Bouvier and Rappo attempted to have the charges against them thrown out in November 2015, arguing that there were a number of irregularities in the legal procedure against them and that Rybolovlev may have exercised undue influence.[43] In 2016, a Monegasque judge rejected their argument.[44] However, in 2019, the Monaco Court of Appeals dismissed the charges against Bouvier.[45]

On 1 October 2015, Monaco's new principal prosecutor Jacques Dorémieux replaced Jean-Pierre Dreno. Dreno gained judicial responsibilities in Aix-en-Provence and had been implicated in a suspicious purchase, through the intermediary Erminio Giraudi, of an apartment at Ospedaletti on the Italian Riviera from Silvio Berlusconi's 85-year-old brother.[46][47][48] With the release of the Panama Papers on 3 April 2016, the minister of justice Phillippe Narmino's son Antoine Narmino through the son's consultancy firm Narmino & Dotta was shown to have established 29 overseas companies registered in Panama with support from Mossack Fonseca.[49][50] In August and September 2017, Mediapart published articles which showed a close relationship between Dmitry Rybololev and Phillippe Narmino.[51][52] On 8 November 2018, Dmitri Rybolovlev and Philippe Narmino were charged in Monaco court with passive and active influence peddling and for passive corruption.[53] Since then several other Monegasque officials have been charged with influence peddling, corruption, and violation of privacy, including Minister of the Interior Paul Masseron, Attorney General Jean Pierre Dreno, Director of Public Security Régis Asso, and Fusari

On 12 December, 2019, Monaco’s Court of Appeal dismissed the charges of fraud and money laundering against Bouvier.[54] Legal proceedings continue in other jurisdictions, including Switzerland.[55] The Geneva public prosecutor's office is also in possession of emails exchanged between Bouvier and Sotheby's, while the former was making private purchases for Dmitry Rybolovlev.[33]

A criminal investigation into Bouvier in Switzerland was closed in December 2023, with the Geneva Prosecutor's Office stating that it could not find any evidence to raise suspicion against him.[56]

In November 2023, it was reported that Monaco investigating judges dismissed the case against Rybolovlev concerning his alleged complicity for invasion of privacy. A complaint against Rybolovlev as well as his lawyer Tetiana Bersheda and then-Monaco public prosecutor Jean-Pierre Dreno was filed back in 2015 by Tatia Rappo, a friend of both Rybolovlev and Bouvier. The case against Dreno was also dismissed in November 2023, Bersheda was cleared of any wrongdoing related to the privacy charges by Monaco court in March 2024.[57]

In June 2024, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the conduct of the criminal investigation against Bersheda "violated rights protected by the European Convention of Human Rights."[58]

Singapore

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On 12 March 2015, Rybolovlev sued Bouvier in Singapore, asking for a global freeze on Bouvier's and Rappo's assets.[17] On 13 March, Senior Judge Lai Siu Chiu of the High Court of Singapore ordered the global freezing of Bouvier's assets.[59] The Singapore Court of Appeal repealed the decision and ordered that Bouvier's assets be unfrozen, citing a low risk that Bouvier would dissipate his assets and that Rybolovlev failed to follow procedure in the injunction by not giving Bouvier notice of the proceedings.[60]

In March 2016, the High Court of Singapore dismissed Bouvier's attempt to suspend the civil suit filed in the territory against him by two companies linked to the Rybolovlev family trust. Bouvier had argued the dispute should be fought in the Swiss courts.[61] In a judgment published on 22 March 2016, Senior Judge Lai Siu Chiu ruled that the Singapore suit, which was filed in the High Court in 2015, should proceed. She said the case should be transferred to the Singapore International Commercial Court, which deals specifically with cross-border commercial disputes.[61]

On 18 April 2017, the Court of Appeal of Singapore again contradicted the High Court, ruling that Switzerland was a more appropriate forum for the civil lawsuit.[62][63]

Hong Kong

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In addition to Singapore, Bouvier also had the assets of his Hong Kong-based company Mei Invest Limited frozen through an injunction in July 2015.[64] In September that year, it was announced that a consent summons had been agreed upon between Bouvier and Accent Delight International Limited as well as Xitrans Finance Limited, two of Rybolovlev's companies. Subsequently, Bouvier's assets were unfrozen.[65]

United States

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Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi

In New York, auction house Sotheby's became embroiled in the legal dispute in 2016 when the art dealers that had originally sold Da Vinci's Salvator Mundi painting to Bouvier learned that he had sold it to Rybolovlev at a much higher price. According to court papers, Sotheby's was asked to clarify whether it had been aware that the painting was worth more than what the art dealers had sold it to Bouvier for, and whether the auction house had misled the dealers in favor of the Swiss trader.[66] Email exchanges unearthed by Rybolovlev’s lawyers indicate that the practice of over-invoicing was systematic, with the intermediary regularly pushing his client to buy paintings without giving them the necessary reflection time for such investments.[67]

In November that year, Sotheby's issued a pre-emptive suit in relation to Salvator Mundi, denying that it had ever been part of a scheme allegedly perpetrated by Bouvier to defraud both the sellers of the painting, and Rybolovlev.[68]

On 11 June 2018, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted Rybolovlev permission to access Sotheby's paperwork regarding its interactions with Bouvier for his ongoing lawsuits against the Swiss in Monaco and Switzerland.[69]

Another ongoing US investigation into Bouvier and his alleged involvement in fraudulent activities was dropped in May 2018.[70]

On 2 October 2018, Rybolovlev sued Sotheby's for $380 million, alleging the auction house had "materially assisted the largest art fraud in history" and that Sotheby's "knowingly and intentionally made the fraud possible" because it was aware of how much Bouvier had paid the original sellers of the paintings later purchased by Rybolovlev.[71] Sotheby's called these allegations "baseless" and told Reuters it would seek to have the lawsuit dismissed in a New York court.[72]

In what Sotheby’s called a “disappointing” decision, a US federal court in Manhattan rejected Sotheby’s request to have the case dismissed.[73] On 25 June 2019, the court argued that the auction house did not present evidence that would justify the “exceptional circumstances” required to have the case thrown out.[73][74] Instead, Sotheby’s was ordered to submit previously confidential details relevant to the case for consideration and was banned from redacting information from court documents.[75]

A November 2019 ruling of a New York court compelled Sotheby’s to produce documents used in foreign criminal proceedings in the Affair in the jurisdictions of Switzerland and Monaco.[76] Sotheby’s had fought against this decision, arguing that confidentiality and the fact that it was named in the Swiss proceedings should shield it from having to submit the documents, which the court rejected.[77]

In December 2023, it was reported that Rybolovlev and Bouvier had reached an undisclosed settlement agreement.

In January 2024, the jury at a New York Federal Court found for Sotheby's on all counts that Rybolovlev had alleged.[78] A lawyer representing Sotheby's stated that the verdict "reaffirmed what we knew since the beginning, which was that Sotheby's played no role in any fraud or attempted fraud against Rybolovlev or anyone else."[79]

Impact

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Bouvier has stated that, as a result of the actions taken against him, he has "lost everything."[80] In an interview featured in the documentary The Lost Leonardo,[81] he claimed that "Rybolovlev contacted all the banks, all the auction houses. So I'm blacklisted by the auction houses. I was on the front page of every newspaper. I was discredited. My credit lines were canceled by the banks. All my insurance was canceled."

In December 2023, Bouvier stated that his "name is now cleared", adding that the Geneva Prosecutor's decision to dismiss the case marked the "end of a nine-year nightmare. Courts all around the world have now unanimously concluded that I was innocent."[82]

The Bouvier Affair has been widely reported and followed across the art world and beyond as it laid bare "the exploitation of art for financial gain"[83] and put a spotlight on the business behaviors of middlemen in the art market.[84][85] Furthermore, Bouvier’s alleged wrongdoings have led to policymakers’ greater scrutiny of his freeports, where high-dollar art is often stored.[67][86]

The scandal has also cast a negative light on Monaco. According to The New York Post, commentators on the case said that it ended up "almost bringing down half the principality" as "it brought back all those charges of Monaco being corrupt and dirty."[87] According to Gérard Vespierre, editor of the geopolitics journal Le Monde Décrypté, "'Monacogate'" exemplifies how jurisdictions that lack transparency and accountability risk being subverted and ultimately can allow for the rule of law to be undermined by wealthy and influential individuals to further their own agendas."[88]

Commentators have opined that the unfolding events could be the catalyst for a renewed push to reform the art sector.[89] Following a January 2024 verdict in New York where Rybolovlev lost against Sotheby's for its dealings with Bouvier, Daniel Kornstein, a lawyer for Rybolovlev, said the case "achieved our goal of shining a light on the lack of transparency that plagues the art market."[90]

References

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