Billionaire Sues Wine Auction House

A billionaire businessman is suing a leading wine auction house, Acker Merrall & Condit, alleging that the company sold him counterfeit bottles of vintage wine.

The lawsuit, filed by William Koch, an art and wine collector involved in several lawsuits against alleged purveyors of counterfeit wine, comes on the eve of an Acker auction in the West Village on Friday night that the company is describing as a "historic" offering of fine champagnes.

Mr. Koch, the founder and president of an energy holdings company in Florida, the Oxbow Group, contends in the lawsuit that in his cellar experts found four counterfeit wines that he purchased from Acker auctions and that, if authentic, would be worth $107,000. The lawsuit also alleges that Acker, a New York City-based auction house that Wine Spectator magazine has named the country's leading wine auctioneer for the last two years, knowingly misrepresented the wines prior to auction and has done so to other customers for a number of years.

As an example of Acker's alleged fraud, the lawsuit contends that the company has sold customers large-format bottles of pre-1945 Château Pétrus that could not have been authentic because the chateau did not begin producing that style of bottle until after 1945.

The president and CEO of Acker, John Kapon, defended his company in a statement.

"We go to extreme lengths to try and make sure that every bottle of wine that we sell is as described," he said. "If we sold wine to Bill Koch that he believes to be counterfeit, then we clearly believed it to be authentic and as described. If a few fraudulent bottles out of hundreds purchased went undetected, then we stand ready to return Mr. Koch's, or any purchaser's money."

Mr. Koch began what has been described as a shake-up of the wine auction world last year after discovering that a bottle of Château Lafite dated 1787, with the initials Th.J. for Thomas Jefferson, which he had bought on consignment from Christie's, was likely fake. He now is suing the consignor of the wine, a German music publisher named Hardy Rodenstock.

Mr. Koch, who Forbes.com reported has a net worth of $2 billion, filed a second lawsuit later in last year, claiming that he bought counterfeit wines from Zachys auction house that had been consigned by a California collector, Eric Greenberg.

In the wake of Mr. Koch's lawsuit against Mr. Rodenstock, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI was investigating the possible involvement of wine auction houses in the sale of counterfeit wine. A source confirmed that the FBI probe is ongoing but would not specify which sales are under investigation.

Big-ticket Champagnes at Acker's auction on Friday night at Cru restaurant include lots of 1938 vintage Krug Champagne that are expected to sell for between $7,000 and $10,000 a bottle and 1928 magnums of Dom Pérignon that will likely fetch between $8,000 and $12,000 a bottle.