Bad news this week for billionaire wine collector
William Koch, who has lost his bid to reinstate a lawsuit against Christie’s
that claimed the auction house “induced” him to buy counterfeit wine. As
reported on db.com, the US Court of
Appeals in Manhattan last week upheld a 2011 ruling by US district judge
Barbara Jones dismissing Koch’s suit after finding that he waited too long to
sue, agreeing that the statute of limitations had expired.
“For wine, timing is critical, the same is true for causes of action,”
said US district judge John Koeltl, who was sitting on the appeals court for
the case. “I’m very disappointed by the decision. The appeals judges dismissed
the case for a technicality, although we know they got a lot of the facts
wrong, but they’re the ones who decide what the facts are,” Koch said. “Christie’s
got away with an incredible hoax,” Brad Goldstein, a Koch spokesman, told Bloomberg. Koch filed a lawsuit against
Christie’s in Manhattan in 2010, claiming the London-based auction house had
sold him counterfeit wine “for many years.”
Koch also said that Christie’s had “induced” him to buy four bottles of
1787 Château Lafite engraved “Th.J” that had purportedly belonged to American
President Thomas Jefferson from German wine dealer Hardy Rodenstock in 1987 because
Christie’s described the wines “positively” in auction catalogs during the
1980s. The wines were allegedly discovered in the mid-‘80s when Rodenstock
claimed to have found a cache in a bricked-up cellar in Paris. Koch had the bottles
tested in October 2000.
 |
| One of the purportedly fake Jefferson bottles |
In dismissing the case last year, Jones said Koch knew the bottles were
counterfeit and that he bought the wine out of a “desire to gather evidence
against Christie’s.” Jonathan Lerner, a lawyer for Christie’s, told Bloomberg: “Today’s court ruling was
clearly correct, Koch’s claims turned to vinegar a long time ago. The only hoax
in this case was the allegation in the complaint that ‘no credible question’
had been raised about the wine until shortly before the complaint was filed.”
Koch should have made inquiries about the wine by October 2000, when a
report was issued about its authenticity, the appeals court said. He filed his
suit in 2010. A historian at Monticello, Jefferson’s
former home in Virginia, issued a report in December 1985 that
determined “no solid connecting evidence could be found between Jefferson and
the Th.J wine.” While the report didn’t become public at the time, newspapers
including the New York Times
published articles saying there was “scholarly doubt” about the authenticity of
the wine. Koch has previously sued Rodenstock and American auction houses
Zachy’s and Acker Merrall & Condit for fraud.
