Billionaire collector and music mogul David Geffen has unequivocally refused calls from Justin Sun for the return of an Alberto Giacometti sculpture that Sun claims was stolen from his collection by an employee and sold as part of an elaborate fraud.
Sun, who is based in Hong Kong, filed his suit in February in New York, where the sculpture is located. On Wednesday, the 82-year-old Geffen hit the millennial crypto magnate with a 100-page countersuit.
Sun purchased the bronze, steel, and iron Giacometti, titled Le Nez (1949–65), at a Sotheby’s auction of works from the Macklowe collection in November 2021 for $78.4 million, working with the assistance of his former art adviser, Sydney Xiong. Sun said he had expressed interest to Xiong in selling the piece for an offer of at least $80 million. At that time, Sun had said on social media that he would donate the sculpture to his APENFT, an online exhibition space.
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The donation was never made; however, the work was lent to the Institut Giacometti in Paris in 2023. Sun says that Xiong executed the illicit sale via a scheme of allegedly fictitious lawyers, among other parties, and falsified documents with the goal of “pocketing at least hundreds of thousands of dollars for herself.”
Sun accused Xiong of having exchanged Le Nez for two unidentified paintings from Geffen’s collection, reportedly worth $55 million, and an additional $10.5 million in cash. According to Sun, the total profit from the sale was $65.5 million, far below the $80 million he reportedly sought. He added in his filing that Geffen—a member of the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list, with a collection reportedly valued at $2 billion—should not have bought the Giacometti, given the odd circumstances of the sale, including the involvement of a Chinese lawyer using a Gmail account.
Entertainment mogul David Geffen receiving the UCLA Medal in 2014 in Westwood, California.
Imeh Akpanudosen
Sun claims that Xiong confessed to the fraud in May 2024. According to him, after the exhibition of the Giacometti in Paris, she redirected its transportation from Sun’s storage facility in Singapore to an art warehouse in Delaware managed by the art dealers David and Cole Tunkl. Sun has demanded the Giacometti back from Geffen, otherwise Geffen must pay what Sun’s countersuit described as “substantial damages.”
The complaint does not contain any allegations that Geffen had contact with, or any connection to, Xiong. Geffen’s attorney, Tibor L. Nagy, speaking to the New York Times in February, called Sun’s claim “bizarre and baseless,” and suggested this was ultimately a case of seller’s remorse.
Geffen’s lawsuit described Sun’s filing as a “sham,” repeatedly denying Sun’s claims.
“In or about November 2024,” Geffen says, “Xiong stated on a phone call with David Tunkl that, since the Tunkls were unable to sell the Two Paintings at a high enough price, Sun intended to hire U.S. lawyers to contrive a lawsuit to pressure Geffen to rescind the deal.” Geffen argues that the pair were desperate to sell the Giacometti, given the cryptocurrency market crash-out that took place between 2022 and 2023, and that, compounding Sun’s financial turmoil, in November of 2023, hackers stole around $115 million from platforms owned by Sun.
Geffen also claims that, despite searching for buyers for more than a year, the pair could not make a profit from the two unnamed paintings included in the deal.
Geffen also alleged that Sun had already proven himself capable of dishonest business: Sun has been sued by numerous former employees who have claimed that he forced them to engage in “unethical and/or illegal business activities.”
Chinese-born crypto founder Justin Sun.
AFP via Getty Images
Sun, who refers to himself as His Excellency on his website, has drawn scrutiny from the press and federal officials for his business practices. He shelled out $6.2 million at Sotheby’s for Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian (2019), the infamous banana duct-taped to a wall, and then ate the artwork at a press conference in Hong Kong. Shortly after, he allegedly pressured the crypto trade publication CoinDesk to retract an article critical of the publicity stunt. The article examined his troubles with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which in March 2023 charged him and Tron, the blockchain he founded, with fraud, among other security violations. As of February, all parties were exploring a resolution to the civil fraud case.
The suit alleged that there were many inconsistencies in Sun’s story, including that he deleted WhatsApp messages with the Tunkls about his desire to “reclaim” the sculpture prior to filing his suit against Geffen; Sun’s various legal representatives were allegedly given conflicting information on the case, including details about where the $10.5 million went, and there are two different dates in which Xiong is accused of forging Sun’s signature. Xiong’s motivations for the forgery, Geffen says, also changed: She first claimed it was a misstep caused by a deadline, only later to confess to fraud.
Geffen’s suit attacks Sun’s core argument that Xiong, who remained listed as the director of APENFT on the organization’s website even after the February filing, was not involved with his art collection. If she was a rogue agent, as Sun claims, why was there never a police report filed against her, the filing asks.
ARTnews has contacted Geffen and Sun’s legal representation for comment. In a statement to Artnet News, William Charron, a lawyer for Sun said, “It is highly unwise for Mr. Geffen to have staked his case on his proclaimed innocence of Sydney Xiong. Ms. Xiong confessed to her theft, she was arrested in China and is in detention in China today. In spite of these facts, Mr. Geffen goes all-in on the idea that Ms. Xiong was not a thief; that she supposedly spoke for Mr. Sun at all times; and that she is walking freely in China today. Mr. Geffen’s pleading is extremely misguided.”
He added: “More very compelling details will come out through the fullness of this litigation. We eagerly look forward to litigating this case and to recovering Mr. Sun’s property.”
