Christie

Wine Collector Seeks $5 Million Damages over Botched Christie's Auction

(NEWSCORE) - A Norwegian wine collector is suing leading auctioneer Christie's for $5 million over claims it botched the sale of his world-class collection of rare wines, Courthouse News reported Friday.

Businessman Christen Sveaas branded the 2007 auction in Los Angeles a "severe failure," after many of his vintage bottles failed to sale or auctioned far below market value.

A dozen bottles of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1945 sold for $100,000, compared to the $170,000 collected for the same lot at Christie's in New York three days earlier, Sveaas claimed.

He also alleged that cases of the 1999 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Richebourg, "one of the most sought-after wines in the world", sold for $1,250 a bottle in LA, next to the $8,867 a bottle that was fetched at an auction held in London three days afterwards.

Sveaas claimed that Christie's failed to promote the sale properly, did not send the auction catalog to customers in time, and twice delayed the auction unnecessarily, holding it at the "tail end of an overcrowded auction season."

Additionally, "Christie's never informed Sveaas that it believed that the prevailing attitude in the United States was unfavorable to rarer vintages of wine due to press coverage and speculation concerning the authenticity of such wines," according to the complaint filed in the Los Angeles Federal Court.