ARTPRICE FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST CHRISTIE’S
Artprice.com, a French provider of fine-arts data for auctions, accused Christie’s International of share-price manipulation after the auctioneer raised its damages estimate in a lawsuit just before Artprice announced earnings, according to Bloomberg.
Artprice claimed Christie’s filed a eighty-seven-million-dollar damages estimate, up from about one million dollars in its original filing, knowing Artprice had to announce the higher risk to investors just before it reported fourth-quarter earnings, said chief executive officer Thierry Ehrmann.
“It’s a tactic which consists of creating a panic effect,” Erhmann said in a telephone interview yesterday. “To me, the materiality of the offense is uncontestable.” The complaint was filed with Paris prosecutors yesterday.
Christie’s, the London-based auction house owned by French billionaire François Pinault, sued Artprice in 2008 for trademark violations and copyright infringement, saying Artprice scanned Christie’s catalogues for its website without permission. Artprice, whose online art-cataloguing system has 1.3 million subscribers, says it respects copyrights and putting catalogues online promoted the auctions.
Artprice shares fell as much as 9 percent on February 9 in Paris trading, the day it announced the risk to shareholders of the lawsuit.
“Artprice reproduced in their entirety more than 2,300 of Christie’s catalogues on its website without permission,” the auctioneer said in an e-mailed statement. “This is nothing more than a clear-cut case brought by Christie’s for the global infringement of Christie’s copyright and trademarks.”
Christie’s didn’t confirm Artprice’s estimate, saying it claimed “damages for Artprice’s global infringement of Christie’s trademarks and copyright since the launch of the Artprice image service in 2007.” The court would determine damages, according to the e-mail.
