A long-running battle with the Warhol authentication committee is about to turn into a class-action lawsuit, according to Bloomberg, as Joe Simon-Whelan won the right to a day in court:
“Mr. Simon-Whelan has battled this organization for a long time,” said his lawyer, Brian Kerr of New York-based Browne Woods George LLP, in an e-mail. He “is pleased that the court’s decision now gives him the opportunity to obtain monetary damages and an injunction for the benefit of himself and others because defendants unjustly benefited from their antitrust conspiracy and fraud.”
But not everything went Simon-Whelan’s way:
Granting Simon-Whelan’s request to question witnesses, Judge Laura Swain narrowed the grounds of his suit, saying he couldn’t make antitrust claims based on allegations that the foundation was inflating prices of Warhol pictures in its own inventory.
Warhol Collector Wins Right to Pursue Foundation Suit (Bloomberg)