This post was originally published on artnews.com
The ongoing legal bout between crypto billionaire Justin Sun and entertainment mogul David Geffen over Alberto Giacometti’s Le Nez has officially entered its maximalist phase. What began as a dispute over an $80 million sculpture now involves accusations of art fraud and forged documents, discussion of the crypto market’s collapse, and allegations that an art adviser has been detained in China.
The sculpture in question—a bronze, steel, and iron piece Sun purchased for $78.4 million at Sotheby’s in 2021—was allegedly sold to Geffen without his knowledge by former adviser Sydney Xiong. In February, Sun filed suit in New York, where the sculpture currently resides, claiming that Xiong executed the sale using fictitious lawyers and forged documents, walking away with “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for herself.
Geffen responded with a 100-page countersuit in April, calling Sun’s claim “bizarre and baseless” and attributing the dispute to “seller’s remorse.”
In a recent filing, Sun’s legal team claimed that Xiong has been detained without bail since February at the Dezhou Detention Center in Shandong Province, China. “It is highly unwise for Mr. Geffen to have staked his case on his proclaimed innocence of Sydney Xiong,” Sun’s lawyer William Charron told ARTnews in an email. “Ms. Xiong confessed to her theft, she was arrested in China and is in detention in China today.”
Sun’s lawsuit claims that Xiong diverted Le Nez to an art storage facility in Delaware operated by dealers David and Cole Tunkl. The piece was then allegedly sold to Geffen for $10.5 million in cash and two unidentified paintings, which Sun was expected to sell to make up the balance—despite him never authorizing the transaction, court filing say. Sun says he only ever agreed to sell Le Nez if the price was north of $80 million.
Geffen’s filing, meanwhile, alleges that Sun and Xiong failed to offload the two paintings at a profit, and then tried to claw back the Giacometti by fabricating a legal claim. The countersuit also points to what it claims are inconsistencies in Sun’s narrative: no police report was filed, WhatsApp messages were deleted, and Sun’s lawyers received conflicting information about when, how, and even if the alleged fraud occurred. Xiong, Geffen’s team notes, remained listed as the director of Sun’s APENFT platform months after the initial lawsuit was filed.
And then there’s the matter of APENFT itself. Sun previously alleged that he’d donated Le Nez to the platform (and even retweeted their thank-you message), but later claimed he never actually did. In 2023, the work was loaned to the Institut Giacometti in Paris, with no clear trail of how or why it left Sun’s hands.
Geffen’s camp also seized on Sun’s recent financial and reputational trouble. Between the crypto crash, a $115 million hack of his platforms in 2023, and an SEC civil fraud case still in play, Sun’s credibility, Geffen argues, is far from unassailable. The countersuit cites multiple lawsuits by former employees accusing Sun of forcing them to engage in unethical or illegal business practices.
Sun, for his part, remains adamant. “Geffen is clinging to the fiction that Sydney Xiong was not a thief,” Charron said in a statement. “More very compelling details will come out through the fullness of this litigation.”