{"id":412687,"date":"2026-02-07T09:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/412687\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T09:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:37:08","slug":"court-battle-over-picasso-art-exposes-offshore-finances-of-farages-billionaire-davos-sponsor-nigel-farage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/412687\/","title":{"rendered":"Court battle over Picasso art exposes offshore finances of Farage\u2019s billionaire Davos sponsor | Nigel Farage"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s \u00a350,000 trip to Davos.<\/p>\n

The details about Sasan Ghandehari, who funded Farage\u2019s tickets to the summit, emerged in court papers about a \u00a34m claim brought by a British Virgin Islands<\/a> firm, which has accused Christie\u2019s auction house of misrepresentation when it sold the art to it.<\/p>\n

Ghandehari, a British citizen who is reported to have a $10bn (\u00a37.3bn) 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 \u201capparently the ultimate beneficial owner\u201d of this BVI company.<\/p>\n

In response, Christie\u2019s has made a counterclaim for \u00a316m, 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.<\/p>\n

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. His lawyer said it would be an \u201cinvasive exercise\u201d.<\/p>\n

The documents raise questions for Farage about the lack of transparency around Ghandehari\u2019s $10bn trust, after it was listed under the Reform UK<\/a> leader\u2019s name as sponsoring his Davos pass.<\/p>\n

Tom Brake, the director of the Unlock Democracy campaign group, said: \u201cPoliticians 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawyers for Ghandehari said confidentiality around private family trusts was a normal and lawful feature of such structures.<\/p>\n

Farage\u2019s links to Ghandehari were first reported by the Guardian<\/a> after the Reform UK leader\u2019 trip to Davos. The Guardian also revealed that the Ghandehari family was a client of a design comany that made a \u00a3200,000 donation to Reform UK. Interior Architecture Landscape has said the donation was made independently by its owner and director, John Simpson, a conveyancer from Potters Bar.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Between 2020 and 2021, Darby was also the 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 the owner and director of the firm. They also stressed that Ghandehari had no influence over the company\u2019s \u00a3200,000 in political donations to Reform UK.<\/p>\n

Ghandehari\u2019s wealth is reported to derive from his late mother, Hourieh Peremaa, whose family gave an interview in 2008<\/a> 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 then most expensive houses in the capital for \u00a350m.<\/p>\n

Little is known about what Ghandehari\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the case, Ghandehari claims Christie\u2019s 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\u2019s says it had no obligation to tell him and that this was not raised at the point when Ghandehari paid a \u00a34m first payment.<\/p>\n

In its counterclaim, Christie\u2019s revealed that Darby had sent a message in May 2023 saying: \u201cThe accounts team were requesting for a breather and wondering if they could push back the payment schedule.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

A judge found no financial information had been provided to show the firm had sufficient assets to pay Christie\u2019s costs if they were to be awarded against them.<\/p>\n

The sole asset revealed to be owned by Brewer Management Corporation was another painting, by Flora Yukhnovich, called I\u2019ll Have What She\u2019s Having\u201d. It is estimated by the Ghandeharis to be worth \u00a32.1m\u2013\u00a32.3m but by Christie\u2019s to be worth \u00a31m. The painting is said to be held at an unknown location in the UK.<\/p>\n

In relation to Ghandehari\u2019s arguments that he was a \u201cgood mark\u201d, the judge said he had difficulty accepting this as \u201cno proper evidence has been provided as to Mr Ghandehari\u2019s financial position\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ghandehari\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

The judge decided not to order the BVI firm 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 \u201cunencumbered\u201d, to disclose the location of the painting and permit Christie\u2019s to sell it to discharge any costs order \u2013 although it is \u201cilliquid\u201d and may not cover costs.<\/p>\n

A Christie\u2019s spokesperson said: \u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A high court battle over a Picasso painting has shone a light on the offshore financial structures of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-412687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}