New York Court Rules to Keep Auction Consignors Anonymous
- December 17, 2013 22:50
A New York court reversed a decision Tuesday that could have forced auction houses to reveal the names of sellers.
Changed was a decision based on a ruling by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court in 2012. The court had said that state law required that buyers be allowed to know the names of sellers in post-auction paperwork in order for the deal to become binding.
The case had come about from a lawsuit againt William J. Jenack, a Chester, new York auctioneer who sold a Russian antique, a czarist box made by I. P. Khlebnikov, in 2008. The highest bidder in the sale refused to pay, on the grounds that post-sale documentation had not identified the seller.
On Tuesday, the New York Court of Appeals agreed that the auctioneer had provided enough information to the buyer for the sale to go through and had acted as the seller's agent.
