The Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier may have ended a “nine-year nightmare“ when his epic legal feud with Dmitry Rybolovlev was settled last year, but it appears his troubles are far from over. Last month, a Swiss federal court ruling, first reported by Tribune de Genève, stated that Bouvier owes back taxes “in the region of SFr 712m ($821m)” to the canton of Geneva for the years 2008 to 2015.
Bouvier’s appeal in Swiss federal court to overturn this ruling was rejected in August. He has also been ordered to pay the costs of the court proceedings.
This ruling comes four years after Switzerland’s Federal Criminal Court alleged that Bouvier owed SFr 330 ($380m) in back taxes on profits made through the sale of around $2bn of art to Rybolovlev.
Central to the court’s latest decision is the fact that Bouvier, despite paying taxes and claiming residence in Singapore, where he moved to 2009, spent the majority of most years during the aforementioned time period in Switzerland. The ruling finds that the bulk of Bouvier’s business and personal relationships remained in Geneva. For example, in 2009, he spent 23 days in Singapore compared to 229 in Geneva.
Commenting on the judgement, Bouvier tells The Art Newspaper via email: “I disagree with the conclusions of the Swiss fiscal authorities and I will challenge this decision in court.”
Bouvier’s lawyer, Bénédict Fontanet told Tribune de Genève that his client has lived in Singapore since 2009 and pays his taxes there. He points out that Bouvier built the Singapore Freeport, a storage facility opened in 2010. “To build such a project, you obviously have to spend time there,” Fontanet said.
The judge also noted that Bouvier failed “repeatedly over several years to declare items of wealth and income, in order to evade the Swiss tax authorities”.
Meanwhile, in what appears to be chance timing, the Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s office has also dismissed the final complaint made against Rybolovlev in relation to his legal saga with Bouvier. After his arrest in 2017 in Monaco, Bouvier filed a complaint against Rybolovlev in Bern accusing him of involvement in the arrest, alleging “abduction of a Swiss citizen by a foreign agent”. Bouvier withdrew his complaint following the settlement.
Rybolovlev’s lawyers said in a statement that the decision has “definitively closed the case and confirmed their client’s innocence, which he has steadfastly maintained”.
