COURTESY WILDENSTEIN & CO.
In the Financial Times, Georgina Adam reports that a French Court of Appeal has demanded €20 million ($25 million) in bail from Guy Wildenstein, who is accused (among other things) of failing to pay an €600 million tax ($750.6 million) on the inheritance received from his father Daniel, who died in 2001.
From the FT
Half the €20m has to be paid in cash, half in assets linked to real estate by the middle of October, according to AFP. Wildenstein denies the allegation, but because he is New York-based, he has already paid €500,000 into court, with a view to attending the French court proceedings. His Paris-based lawyer Eric Dezeuze had not responded to requests for comment at press time.
In July 2012 an investigation linked to the tax inquiry turned up 30 paintings in the non-profit Wildenstein Institute in Paris. These, according to investigators, had been reported stolen or “missing” by their owners; Guy Wildenstein has said the institute never hid missing works, it simply lacked a full inventory of its vault’s contents.