U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan approved a settlement possibly worth over a half billion dollars in a consolidated class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of buyers and sellers at Christie's and Sotheby's U.S. auctions from 1992. The class action alleged these customers were overcharged because the auctioneers colluded on commission fees.

Meanwhile a different federal judge approved a $70 million settlement of a shareholder class-action lawsuit against Sotheby's related to the same scheme.
The settlement of the suit on behalf of auction buyers and sellers, which the auction houses agreed to pay last fall, includes $412 million in cash and the balance in certificates that can be used to receive discounts on future commission fees at either auction house. These discount certificates have a face value of $125 million, although a market value of only $100 million.

The settlement does not apply to buyers and sellers who participated in auctions overseas and opted out of the class action suit. Last month the judge dismissed lawsuits brought by participants in overseas auctions, principally in London, on grounds that U.S. antitrust law would not apply. Buyers and sellers in foreign auctions can still sue in foreign courts under foreign law, according to the settlement terms, but foreign jurisdictions may not permit the class action lawsuits allowed for under U.S. law.

Former Sotheby's Holdings President and Chief Executive Diana Brooks has pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the scheme and is cooperating with the government. Sotheby's itself also pleaded guilty to criminal charges and will pay a $45 million fine. Christie's cooperated early with a government investigation into the scheme and was not named in criminal charges.

Former Sotheby's Chairman Alfred Taubman had agreed this past September to pay more than $156 million of Sotheby's half of the settlement of the customer class action case. Taubman has also agreed to contribute $30 million toward the shareholder's class action settlement.

Taubman has not yet been charged criminally, but Kaplan's ruling noted published reports that Taubman is the target of a grand jury investigation.

Sotheby's, apparently in a move to help pay for all of this (although denied by the auction house), has announced that it will cut its worldwide staff back by about 8%.
 

EBay, in a move last fall that befuddled most in the photography trade, dissolved its apparently profitable photography department at Butterfield and Butterfield and has attempted to move its higher-level photography consignments on-line without any photography experts. Expert Amanda Doenitz was let go in the move after she had gotten the auction house back into the market after an earlier B&B misstep. Most of the photographic material appearing recently on EBay's new Premier specialty site was reportedly developed by the staff at B&B that was let go.

EBay's Premier site is a blatant rip-off of Sotheby's on-line site with little in the way of new ideas. EBay copied some of the worse parts, including a 10% buyers' fee. There is no buyers' fee on the rest of EBay, which is where most of the real on-line action continues to be. An examination of the Premier site's activity over the last several weeks shows little actual sales in the photographic area. Without an on-going pool of work, the site is not likely to draw regular buyers.

Meanwhile competitor Sotheby's On-Line has expert Nigel Russell, who has done an admirable job in trying to get more interesting material to the site through specialty auctions and in getting more accurate descriptions. The site still has problems, but it is going in the right direction, unlike EBay's upscale site.

In another bonehead move, EBay was considering moving its regular Photography Images section to place it under Photographic Equipment as a category, although it shifted direction at the last moment and put it back under art, where it belongs.

Christie's quickly picked up Doenitz to head up its LA photo department. Doenitz was one of the first in the auction trade to pick up on the contemporary trend, and also brought in interesting 19th century material, especially in the last auction. Her catalogues at Butterfield were always intriguing juxtapositions of images rather than a rigid alphabetical listing. As she told me, "I was so tired of opening catalogues up to Bernice Abbott...By making an association with the images that I really liked, I learned to appreciate the other pieces, and I think it made a sale more interesting. People noticed."

Noticed indeed. Collector Michael Mattis reflected what a lot of us thought when he told me: "Amanda did a spectacular job at Butterfield's. Not only did she procure interesting, fresh material (ranging from "old masters" like Weston, Cunningham and Atget, to vernacular), but also her catalogs were curated so beautifully. Rick Wester did the obvious and smart thing by hiring her for Christie's LA; what idiots those EBay managers are!"
 

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF ART CRITICS/USA recently presented its 1999-2000 awards. The US section of the association invites its nearly 400 members to vote for best exhibitions and catalogues. This time the winners in the Best Photography Show category were for First Place: "Inverted Odysseys: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren and Cindy Sherman' (now there's an interesting group) at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University and Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami and curated by Lynn Gumpert, director, Grey Art Gallery, and Shelley Rice, independent curator; and for Second Place: "Vic Muniz" at Brent Sikkema and Ubu Gallery, New York City...TWO NEW GALLERIES have opened their doors. In New York City, Bruce Silverstein opened a gallery in Chelsea, at 504 West 22nd St between 10th and 11th. The gallery, located on the parlor floor of a townhouse building, will be of the few galleries in the area with a main focus on vintage photography. The Bruce Silverstein Gallery opens with an exhibition of vintage prints by noted photojournalist and artist Lucien Aigner on April 17th. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, from 11 AM to 6 PM, and Tuesdays by appointment only. In Belgium my good friend Anne Fourcroy has opened a gallery at 65a rue de la Régence, Brussels. The gallery will be open Tuesday, Friday and Saturday from 11 am to 1 pm and then from 2 pm 6 pm; and on Sunday from 11 am to 3 pm. Her first gallery show is "Duchenne de Boulogne", which is on exhibit until April 20th...A NEW WORLD RECORD of $220,000 (£146,750) was set at Christie's South Kensington's first Camera and Photographic Equipment auction of the year with the sale of the Phantom photographic unit, designed by British MP, Noel Pemberton Billing. This price topped the previous record of $83,000 (£55,750) set by Christie's in 1995...A NEW BOOK that is a must for your library if you collect Japanese photographs (or even if you don't, but admire them) is Portraits in Sepia by Torin Boyd and Naomi Izakura. This book ostensively is about the Japanese carte-de-visite, but what it really covers better than any other previous book is the entire photographic history as it relates to Japan. This 328-page bilingual (Japanese and English) publication is the most comprehensive listing of Japan's foreign and domestic photographers ever compiled. The extensive biographical notes (over 1150 photographers covered) include dates of operation, studio addresses, formats used, birth and death dates and much other important biographical information. There is also a great guide for dating Japanese carte-de-visites; and a good foldout chart for identifying 19th-century processes. In addition over 200 images are included from Torin and Naomi's collections. This is a MUST book for any photo historian, museum or collector. I cannot recommend it enough. The price is $75 and it is available from Carl Mautz Publishing at 530-478-1610. You can email Carl at cmautz@nccn.net. He is the American distributor. As a special deal to our readers, he will send the book out postage free in the U.S., if ordered within the next 30 days, but you have to tell him about seeing it in the newsletter.