(Bloomberg) — He is the art dealer to the stars, who has rubbed shoulders with celebrities such as Alicia Keys and Paris Hilton.
But now Andrew Valmorbida is locked in a court battle involving a string of prototype Ferraris, artwork by Jean-Michel Basquiat, and a £17 million ($21.5 million) west London townhouse.
Luxembourg-based lender Regera Sarl is chasing Valmorbida for $42.9 million, claiming he defaulted on a loan and attempted to sell artwork over which it had security, without permission, according to court documents.
Valmorbida, in turn, has claimed in London’s High Court that Regera, and its associate company Fidera Ltd, a London-based investment manager, sought to take control of his assets at a knock-down price by blocking their sale and attempting to tip him into bankruptcy.
It is the latest twist in a legal saga for Valmorbida, the scion of an Australian business dynasty and a celebrity art dealer. In 2021, a judge in a Jersey court said he was “serially dishonest” and “evasive,” after being found to have created false documents to secure loans on artwork he did not own. Hassan Khan, a solicitor representing Valmorbida, said his client disputes the Jersey court’s filings, and that he did not act dishonestly. Valmorbida has never been subject to any criminal investigation or criminal charges arising from the matters concluded fully in those proceedings, Khan said.
Since first appearing in the New York art scene in the 1990s, Valmorbida has grown a reputation as one of the industry’s edgiest entrepreneurs, trading in artworks from George Condo to Francis Bacon. Born into one of Melbourne’s wealthiest families, he has been photographed with a string of A-list stars, and claimed to be the first person Giorgio Armani collaborated with in 20 years.
The 45-year-old is best known for having secured the intellectual property of a selection of works by the late New York street artist Richard Hambleton. These have become embroiled in the legal battle.
Feud
The relationship between Regera and Valmorbida began in June 2021, when Regera made a loan of $33.4 million to Valmorbida, allowing him to settle the Jersey case that was brought by a former business partner. As part of the deal, Regera took security over assets including a collection of artworks and luxury vehicles.
Valmorbida claims that the agreement meant he would sell properties in the English county of Hampshire and the Bahamas, along with his car collection and an artwork, Water Worshipper by Basquiat, to repay the lender.
But Regera has accused Valmorbida of defaulting on the loan. It said that of the 240 artworks given as security to Regera, including those by Hambleton, Valmorbida pledged 18 elsewhere — which were then sold. Regera also alleges that Valmorbida failed to notify Regera of a bankruptcy petition from Vardags, the law firm. Vardags didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In his legal filing, Valmorbida said these artworks had been erroneously included in the list by the professional art storage facility.
At the date of filing, Regera had been in the process of recovering $9.5 million including from the sale of artworks and royalties, $5 million from the sale of four Ferrari prototypes, and $95,417 from a Hermes trunk.
In the filing, Valmorbida said he suffers from dyslexia and ADHD, and did not have the clauses and implications of the agreement with Regera explained to him by the lender or his solicitors. He has alleged that Regera breached its duties when selling his assets, by failing to take steps to obtain a proper price. He wants Regera and Fidera Ltd to provide him with an account of the legal costs and expenses.
“Mr Valmorbida has taken the litigation steps most reluctantly against a lender who he alleges has acted unreasonably and oppressively throughout,” Khan said.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
