Art dealer has to reimburse 70M € to clients.

The 34-year-old American art dealer will have to reimburse no less than 70 million euros to his customers. Young art dealer Inigo Philbrick pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan. He faces a twenty-year prison sentence. He also pledged to repay the 70 million euros he defrauded. His career started on a roll in 2010. With the former director of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum as father and gallery owner Jay Jopling as a mentor, he managed to open his first gallery in 2013. The Modern Collections gallery was founded in London, quickly followed by a branch in Miami. Inigo Philbrick was renowned for spotting "bankable" artists, such as Rudolf Stingel, Christopher Wool, Mark Bradford, or Wade Guyton, who made his fortune. In 2016, his company posted a turnover of 55 million euros. In 2017, his investments lost value. Like in the Ponzi scheme, Philbrick began to pay off debts to old investors using new money. He secretly resold shares of works while telling the buying company that it was the main owner. Between 2016 and 2019, he allegedly sold works he did not own on several occasions, accompanied by false documents used to reassure investors. It wasn't until 2019 that one of the investment firms, Fine Art Partners, realized the setup and decided to take legal action against the Miami art dealer. Following these various charges, he fled to Vanuatu, in the Pacific, before being arrested and deported in June 2020 at the request of the United States Embassy. Incarcerated for more than a year, he should know the verdict of his trial in March 2022. Seen in Le Journal des Arts, Julie Goy.