AFTER FIRE, MOMART PAYS MILLIONS OUT OF COURT

The company that ran the art-storage depot that went up in flames, destroying hundreds of pieces of British art, has secretly paid out tens of millions of pounds in damages to leading artists, collectors, and insurance companies, reports Sandra Laville for The Guardian. Momart settled out of court after a group legal action was launched alleging the firm was negligent. The artist Gillian Ayres, the husband of the late Helen Chadwick, the novelist Shirley Conran, and the heirs of the painter Patrick Heron were among those involved in the legal action. Through their lawyers, they claimed the storage warehouse in east London, which caught fire in May 2004, was wholly unsuitable for high-value fine art, had inadequate fire detection, and was “a disaster waiting to happen.”