During his acquaintance with Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier sold him almost 40 works of art worth more than $2 billion, Bloomberg reports in its investigation.

Billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev (Photo: Getty Images)

Rybolovlev accuses Bouvier of deception. The lawsuit, filed in a Monaco court, says the Swiss invoiced the billionaire with inflated prices and may have “secretly withheld a portion of the sale price.” journalists Bloomberg got acquainted with the position of the plaintiff and defendant, as well as with the investigation materials. The results of their investigation will be published in the June issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine. Excerpts from this material are available on the agency's website.

According to Bloomberg , Rybolovlev's collection contains works by Pablo Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, Mark Rothko, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse and Auguste Rodin. The billionaire’s last purchase was Rothko’s painting “No. 6 (Purple, Green and Pink),” for which he paid €140 million. The deal was agreed upon in August 2014. In February 2015, Bouvier was detained by Monaco police when he came to Rybolovlev to discuss the final payment.

The art dealer was charged with fraud and complicity in money laundering. He was released on bail of €10 million. The prosecution also considers the sale of a Rothko painting to be an episode of alleged fraud. If convicted, Bouvier faces up to five years in prison for fraud and up to 10 years for money laundering.

Money laundering charges were also brought against Rybolovlev’s translator, Tanya Rappo, who received commissions from Bouvier as an intermediary. Her lawyer Frank Michel claims that she received this money “absolutely legally and justifiably.” Bouvier also denies charges of money laundering. According to him, paying a commission to the person who introduces the buyer to the seller is a normal thing in the art business.

According to lawyer Tatyana Bersheda, who represents Rybolovlev’s interests, her client considered Bouvier as a broker defending his interests during negotiations with a third party. “He made us believe that we were buying paintings directly from their owners, and we were paying him a commission,” she explained the plaintiff’s position. Bersheda added that her client was given the highest price, which was presented as the minimum price that the seller would agree to.

Bouvier, for his part, maintains that he never had a formal contract with Rybolovlev and was an ordinary salesman, not a broker. According to him, in 80% of the invoices he issued to a Russian businessman, he is listed as a seller. “He himself made the decision to pay this price,” Bouvier said in an interview with Bloomberg .

According to Bersheda, Bouvier charged a 2% commission on most transactions. He explained that he takes a commission not as an intermediary, but as a fee to cover administrative costs, including insurance and transportation costs and payment for examinations of the condition of the paintings. interviewed by Bloomberg , it is not customary to charge sellers for administrative expenses, which rarely reach 2% of the sale price. According to experts and art dealers

Rybolovlev suspected that the art dealer was deceiving him on the eve of 2015, when he was vacationing on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthelemy. There, during lunch in a hotel restaurant, a mutual acquaintance introduced the Russian to Sandy Heller, who turned out to be an art advisor to billionaire and collector Steven Cohen. According to two sources familiar with the conversation, the conversation turned to the art market and, in particular, to Amedeo Modigliani's painting "Nude on a Blue Cushion." It turned out that in 2012 Cohen sold this painting to an unknown buyer for $93.5 million. Rybolovlev bought this painting through Bouvier for $118 million.

The concerned Russian, according to the agency, asked Heller to conduct an audit of other transactions carried out with the help of Bouvier. The expert agreed and concluded that the prices for some works of art were inadequate. Less than two weeks after meeting Heller, according to the agency, Rybolovlev filed a lawsuit against Bouvier.

The lawsuit also mentioned Leonardo da Vinci's painting Christ, Savior of the World, which was purchased by a Russian billionaire in May 2013 for $127.5 million. Rybolovlev had doubts about the justification of the price when he read an article in The New York Times in which unnamed art -Dealers said the painting was sold for an amount ranging from $75 million to $80 million.

During interrogations in Monaco, Bouvier also testified that he purchased the Rothko painting, for which Rybolovlev agreed to pay €140 million, for $80 million, that is, €80 million cheaper. The art dealer claims that the Russian owes him $40 million for this painting, based on the agreed price. However, Rybolovlev refused to pay, claiming that he had already paid significantly more than the price for which Bouvier bought it.

The Swiss's lawyer, David Bitton, suggested that Rybolovlev's lawsuit is just a move in his divorce proceedings with Elena Rybolovleva, which began in 2008 and is still not completed. In May 2014, a court in Geneva ruled that the billionaire must pay his ex-wife 4 billion francs ($4.2 billion), but he challenged this decision.

Lawyer Mark Bonnin, who represents Rybolovleva's interests, said that her ex-husband may try to convince the court that his collection of paintings was overvalued in order to ultimately reduce the amount of payments to his ex-wife. Bersheda, for her part, emphasized that the divorce proceedings have nothing to do with the lawsuit against Bouvier, since Rybolovlev began to suspect the art dealer’s honesty eight months after the court’s decision in favor of his ex-wife.

In the Forbes world ranking of billionaires, Rybolovlev ranks 156th and 14th among the richest Russians. As of April 28, the publication estimates his fortune at $8.5 billion. Rybolovlev refused to talk to Bloomberg when preparing the material, the agency notes.

Rybolovlev paid the art dealer who deceived him more than $2 billion