
bailiffs?
well I know bailiff are only interested in recovering the sum owed , not getting value for money.
I'll certainly get 9m together if i get a 150m yacht out of it!
Steve Jobs' luxury yacht has been impounded in Amsterdam port after French designer Philippe Starck's bill wasn't paid. Bailiffs boarded the shiny new boat, named Venus, last Wednesday and have chained it to the dock, the Dutch newspaper Financieele Dagblad reported. Venus has been seized over Starck's claim that Jobs' estate …
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Yep - how hard would it have been for Philippe to say "I'll have my people talk to your people about the paperwork"? Relying on friendship for a business deal for someone generally acknowledged to be pretty ruthless in business affairs was careless. Hoping that his estate will honour some verbal deal is downright foolish.
I don't know about wherever you guys live, but certainly in the UK a verbal contract is exactly as legally binding as anything on paper. Proving it ever happened is another matter, of course.
Seemingly that applies in the Netherlands too, otherwise that boat wouldn't have been seized.
This seems to be a bit much about nothing...
Yes there is the issue of a verbal contract.
Then there is this thing called probate where the executor and the lawyers work out which bills are to be paid and what taxes are to be charged, along with the value of the estate...
Could be that Starke jumped the gun.
From the look of that boat you don't even need to be any good at it.
I think "it floats" is enough. Personally, I'm glad this thing will possibly never see another harbour. For someone who has put together very impressive designs, this tub looks like he was compensating for that. Ugh.
As a photographer, even for a family wedding, always have a written record. Doesn't have to be formal, even for pro bono work, just a basic statement of expectations etc. Haven't ever done work for friends or family for profit, they cover any costs upfront, no room for misunderstandings.
Given he did design work (so not as much out of pocket as say construction), has no written proof and claims it was with a friend I find it in poor taste to impound the skiff. Your friend died, yes it's not an insignificant sum but you aren't going to starve. If you can't work it out amicably (say split the difference) then you grow a pair and walk away. What would your friend say of your treatment of his family? I would haunt your ass! No written contract = your loss.
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You are correct, they won't starve, the thing that would swing it for me is simply the lack of a contract. It's extremely unlikely he will get that 3 million if the estate chooses to fight so (at least as far as I can see) all he stands to get is ill will. Personally I would chalk it up to experience and not screw with a family friendship, but then again I don't design $150m tubs and it's easy to say that when it's not my money. I've written off quite a bit over the years for wedding shoots where invariably the bride caught the groom cheating a few days before the wedding (this happens a scary amount of times). My contract says I keep the lot but I generally ensure I'm not out of pocket and refund the rest. I'm no saint but I figure its the right thing to do and it's won me plenty of referrals \ repeat business.
As an aside, did I read that it came in hugely under budget? Thats impressive!
You right - You have a wrong assumption.
The yacht belongs to who ever is the registered owner. Its not a difficult concept.
Sure as eggs are omelettes in progress, the designer has no claim or lien on the boat.
Frankly, I am highly surprised that the Dutch court even entertain the notion of arresting the vessel. This is a last chance saloon type action and as the plaintiff you have to produce some pretty heavy and water tight argument to make it stick. Like a contract, an invoice, a latter of protest for non-payment of said invoice.
Rocking up in Den Haag, saying that this dead geezer owes me 3M, but I got nothing to prove it, should have got him thrown out on his ear.
The one who designed it is not the one who had it built, so that's you who's made a wrong assumption. Even if the designer hasn't yet received a single penny, he has no title to the floating thingie. That would lie with either the builder, or the person who ordered the floating showoff thingie, depending on the amount of money that had moved from the latter to the former and the contract between them.
Plus Phillipe Starck designs a lot of different things, I doubt he did much more than provide an aesthetic guide, an engineer would (hopefully) actually drawn up the designs otherwise it would likely end up a seaweed farm somewhere.
Isn't ownership normally held by the constructor until it is released to a company registered in whatever country has the most friendly terms for a flag.
Being pedantic, a naval architect would draw up the plans to an appropriate standard - usually Lloyds - and a surveyor - or in this case more than one surveyor - would monitor the construction. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to get the thing insured, and without insurance if you did any serious damage to anything and had plenty of assets, your life would not be worth living. Even if you were Steve Jobs.
"Venus was originally costed at €150m, which would have entitled Starck to €9m in total, but Jobs' heirs say the actual cost was €105m"
That's an impressive underspend for a mega-yacht project!
To be honest, I rather suspect their bookkeeper is mildly dyslexic...
If you have a house built and do not pay the architect, said architect can absolutely get a lien on your house. (That's why you signed a retainer agreement - in the small print it talks about liens for non-payment).
Starck is what is known as the naval architect, he did the design work, evidently the client approved it and gave the go-ahead to build. Whether we like the result or not is immaterial, Jobs didn't build it to please us, he built it to please himself (and had all his fanbois pay for it - neat trick!)
Establishing Starck's lien is pretty simple.
Under maritime law, a ship CAN be "arrested" for non-payment of bills. Since a ship is mobile (and most houses are not), chaining a ship to a dock is the usual (and fairly common) procedure. This usually gets the owner's attention and results in payment or at least some prompt and fevered negotiation as opposed to the usual brush-off creditors often get and debtors usually try. It is very difficult to effectively sue someone in another country, maritime law recognizes this and takes a very direct approach (chains) to enforcing liens.
This only works on civilian vessels - recently a frigate belonging to a South American country was arrested in a West African port because the "owner" didn't pay for fuel somewhere else - the lien was perfected and the guys showed up with chains. The frigate was armed . . . unlike merchant vessels . . . and fired a few warning shots at the guys with the chains (who immediately lost ALL interest in enforcing a lien for some third party somewhere else in the world) and then the SA government offered to order the frigate to shell the port unless their naval vessel was allowed to leave unmolested. Since the frigate had more firepower than the West African country, the "host" saw the ultimate reasonableness of this proposal and wished the frigate a prompt bon voyage.
Maritime law is VERY different from civil law. Starck had some good legal advice. Remember also we only saw the result AFTER it hit the fan, most probably "his people" and "their people" had already been talking about this and had reached an impasse.
A naval architect? He is a designer not an architect. If you look at his history he primarily designs interiors (hotels, houses etc) household items (chairs, radios) and iirc a motorbike (I believe it won awards but not sales and was described as a crime against motorcycling). Leaving aside any judgement on his ability as art is subjective and he obviously pays the bills with his work so someone likes it, his work is limited to aesthetics not structural design. The closest he gets to an exception is some wind turbines and then possibly only because they don't really have an interior.
I really doubt Job's would be able to insure a luxury yacht whose plans were drawn up by a many who picks sofa colours and designs chairs and alarm clocks. He probably had input into the primary design phase, providing sketches of a hull form or overall aesthetic principals etc, i.e. he said make it look like this picture and a marine engineer \ naval architect actually drew up the plans after they finished crying. He probably did a lot of the interior design as well. Whilst he may still have a claim based on his work (this I never doubted) he probably has no actual claim because there is no paperwork otherwise wouldn't the executors of Steve's estate have paid it?
"Maritime law is VERY different from civil law. Starck had some good legal advice. Remember also we only saw the result AFTER it hit the fan, most probably "his people" and "their people" had already been talking about this and had reached an impasse."
This, since there's actually quite a lengthy legal procedure before the "bailiffs" (actually "deurwaarder", who are the *only* ones able to seize and if necessary auction posessions in this here country, and are appointed by royal proclamation. ) put chains on a ship.
In due processs sufficient evidence has to be presented in court to convince a judge of the merit of the claim, especially if the contract is verbal ( which is *quite* binding in the netherlands), and ample opportunity must be given to the offending party by the deurwaarder to pay up.
It's quite a lengthy procedure that can take up to a year to end up in reposession, and even then *only* if you utterly refuse to acknowledge the deurwaarder ( which includes appeal in court).
So the Jobs estate did drop a ball or two there to let things get this far.
It really doesn't sound like the contract is a problem (although I must agree, I would have done it in writing.) It sounds like the estate is not disputing the 6%, but rather the cost of the yacht (which to me seems odd, I would think design would be flat rate, not based on what the tub ends up costing to make.)
In this area of the globe it is not unusual - nay standing practice - for an architect to be paid a percentage of the ultimate bill for putting up a building.
Now, Mr. S+arck (not to be confused with Philippe de Staercke, a Belgian gangster of some disrepute) fancies himself a bit of a devil-designs-all, and has some buildings to his name, so I'm guessing he figured the tub was so ugly it couldn't be confused with a ship so it must've been a building.
Now, apparently the 6% is not in question, only whether the amount upon which this is calculated should be 100 or 150 million AM$.
Since he is convinced he is owed money, he proceeded to have a claim put on a property belonging to the party owing him the dosh. The fact that in this case it is the offending article (I choose my words carefully) itself is merely a coincidence. He probably estimated his chances of putting the chain on the US estate (or parts of it) to have a very slim chance of success. I wonder where he got that idea.
Nevertheless, someone will have to have the whole kaboodle surveyed and subsequently have to convince a court.
If Flippo thinks he was shortchanged I wish him the best of luck.
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another rich 1%er trying not to pay what they agreed upon.
Bring more Apple products to #Occupy.
contracts and agreements are for the peons. Weaselling is the way of the Upper Crust.
just pay the man what ya owe ya b*ttheads! or let him keep the thing if it's "not important".