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A high court battle over a Picasso painting has shone a light on the offshore financial structures of an Iranian-born businessman who paid for Nigel Farage’s £50,000 trip to Davos.
The details about Sasan Ghandehari, who funded Farage’s tickets to the summit, emerged in court papers about a £4m claim brought by a British Virgin Islands firm, which accuses Christie’s auction house of misrepresentation when it sold the art.
Ghandehari, a British citizen who is reported to have a $10bn (£7.3bn) family trust, is described in the original claim as a representative who arranged the deal for the firm, Brewer Management Corporation. A recent judgment shows that his wife, Yassmin Ghandehari, is “apparently the ultimate beneficial owner” of this BVI company.
In response, Christie’s has made a counterclaim for £16m, saying Ghandehari has failed to pay for the painting, called Femme dans un rocking-chair. It separately raised concerns that Brewer Management Corporation would be unable to pay costs for the legal case if awarded against them, and requested security.
Court documents show Ghandehari, who was a guarantor for the sale, was reluctant to provide details of his income from HP Trust or its reported $10bn of assets over worries about it getting into the public domain, with his lawyer saying it would be an “invasive exercise”.
The documents raise questions for Farage about the lack of transparency around Ghandehari’s $10bn trust, after it was listed under the Reform UK leader’s name as sponsoring his Davos pass.
Tom Brake, the director of the Unlock Democracy campaign group, said: “Politicians must demand total transparency about who is donating to their campaigns and make that information publicly available. This is the minimum the public are entitled to from those seeking their backing.”
Lawyers for Ghandehari said confidentiality around private family trusts was a normal and lawful feature of such structures.
Farage’s links to Ghandehari were first reported by the Guardian, after the Reform UK leader’s £50,000 trip to Davos, which he attended on a pass arranged by HP Trust.
The Guardian also revealed that the Ghandehari family was a client of a design firm that made a £200,000 donation to Reform UK. The firm, Interior Architecture Landscape, says the donation was made independently by its owner and director, John Simpson, a conveyancer from Potters Bar.
In a second link between the firm and the family, first reported by the FT, the court documents show that a Richard Darby was a representative working for Ghandehari and BMC while negotiating over the artwork in 2023.
Between 2020 and 2021, Darby was also owner of Interior Architecture Landscape, as well as being a director until early 2023. Lawyers for the Ghandehari family and a spokesperson for Interior Architecture Landscape said Darby was not representing the family when he was owner and director of the firm. They also stress that Ghandehari had no influence over the company’s £200,000 of political donations to Reform UK.
Ghandehari’s wealth is reported to derive from his late mother, Hourieh Peremaa, whose family gave an interview in 2008 about her being born in Kazakhstan, fleeing to Iran as a refugee at 17 and making billions through property. She first appeared in London in 2008 when she bought one of the most expensive houses in the capital for £50m.
However, little is known about what Ghandehari’s HP Trust invests in or where its reported $10bn of assets are based. His lawyer said its investment portfolio comprised real estate and capital-markets investments in Europe and North America.
Lawyers for Ghandehari say Brewer Management Corporation is one of several vehicles used by the family for the acquisition and holding of art, saying this is standard practice among international collectors and art dealers, particularly where works of art are held in secure freeports.
At the heart of the case, Ghandehari claims that Christie’s should have told him the painting was being sold by a businessman with a conviction for drug trafficking when Brewer Management Corporation guaranteed to buy it for a certain price in early 2023 if it did not sell at auction. Christie’s says it had no obligation to tell him and that this was not raised at the point when Ghandehari paid a £4m first payment.
In its counterclaim, Christie’s revealed that Ghandehari’s representative, Darby, had sent a message in May 2023 saying: “The accounts team were requesting for a breather and wondering if they could push back the payment schedule.” The payment had still not been made by July 2024. Lawyers for Ghandehari say he had doubts about the provenance and conviction of the seller by this point.
A judge found no financial information had been provided to show the firm had sufficient assets to pay Christie’s costs if they were to be awarded against them.
The sole asset revealed to be owned by Brewer Management Corporation was another painting, by Flora Yukhnovich, called: “I’ll have what she’s having” – estimated by the Ghandeharis to be worth £2.1-2.3m but by Christie’s to be worth £1m. The painting is said to be held at an unknown location in the UK.
In relation to Ghandehari’s arguments that he was a “good mark”, the judge said he had difficulty accepting this as “no proper evidence has been provided as to Mr Ghandehari’s financial position”.
Ghandehari’s lawyer claimed a quick Google search would be sufficient to show he was very wealthy and they offered as evidence a description of his attendance at Davos as the owner of a $10bn fund called HP Trust.
He also at one point offered a letter from a partner in an accounting firm to prove that Ghandehari drew a substantial income from the fund, but this offer was subsequently withdrawn because they did not want this to enter the public domain. Ghandehari’s lawyers said he had no obligation to disclose any more information about it in court as he was not a party to the application for security.
The judge decided not to order the BVI company to put up security, saying the existence of a counterclaim was a powerful reason it was not just to do so. He said he would instead accept undertakings from Yassmin Ghandehari about the Yukhnovich painting that it was readily available and “unencumbered”, to disclose the location of the painting and permit Christie’s to sell it to discharge any costs order – although it is “illiquid” and may not cover costs.
A Christie’s spokesperson said: “This is a straightforward debt claim and we are robustly defending ourselves and will continue to pursue the sums rightfully owed to us. Mr Ghandehari is an experienced art market investor and collector, who has been active in the market for many years, across auction houses and is well advised. We are confident that we have complied with all legal and regulatory obligations in relation to due diligence of the work and our consignor.”
