« Greenest City in Germany? | Main | Making amends - spectacularly »
March 2, 2009
Well this is certainly a way to make sure no auction house ever accepts your agency's bids!
A Chinese man who bid nearly $40 million for a pair of controversial antique Chinese statues saidMonday [sic] he is refusing to pay for them Monday, state media reported.Cai Mingchao, who works for China's National Treasures Fund, placed the winning bid by phone at a February 25 auction of artefacts once owned by fashion designer Yves St. Laurent, the Xinhua news agency reported.
[my emphasis]"What I want to stress is that this money cannot be paid," Cai said at a news conference, according to Xinhua.
You know, if the job description of this agency is to recover goods claimed by the nation of China they'll have to do it by lawsuits - no one is going to trust them as honest players in a market situation. And making a case for the rights of the current government of China to these things is really kind of tricky.
Bloomberg.com's version makes the bidder sound more like a showboater. It also has pictures.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at March 2, 2009 1:59 PM