HONG KONG, March 23 (Reuters) – An heiress of the Hong Kong beverage big Vitasoy Worldwide (0345.HK) is suing a distinguished gallery proprietor, saying she paid 500,000 kilos ($613,000) for a Banksy portray that was by no means delivered, in response to a courtroom writ filed this week.
Karen Lo, whose grandfather based Vitasoy which specialises in soy milk and juice drinks, stated Pearl Lam, the gallery proprietor, falsely represented that she had purchased Banksy’s ‘Present Me The Monet’ portray on Lo’s behalf, in response to the writ.
Lam’s workplace instructed Reuters that it was a “non-public matter and we remorse it’s being litigated within the press. In fact we’ve supplied a full refund and we sit up for resolving this matter promptly”. It didn’t give additional particulars.
The 2005 portray by the British artist is a “remix” of a masterpiece by Impressionist painter Claude Monet.
It was offered at a Sotheby’s public sale in October 2020 for greater than 7.5 million kilos, far above an estimated sale value of three million kilos to five million kilos.
Lam is considered one of greater than 170 gallery house owners taking part in Artwork Basel Hong Kong this week.
Hong Kong’s authorities has welcomed the artwork truthful because it tries to reinvigorate the economic system after a virtually three-year droop from elements together with powerful COVID lockdowns, a closed border with China and a safety crackdown.
Reporting by Farah Grasp and Anne Marie Roantree; Enhancing by Bernadette Baum and Raju Gopalakrishnan
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