[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/basquiat-portrait.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tThere is a new development in an ongoing fraud lawsuit against the leader of the collapsed Vancouver-based developer Coromandel Properties, whose chief executive allegedly misappropriated funds to acquire an art collection, reports The Vancouver Sun<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n\tIn 2023, Junchao Mo, a Chinese seed investor and part-owner of Coromandel Properties, and his two sons, Zhao Ming \u201cRobert\u201d Mo and Zi Hao \u201cCalvin\u201d Mo, filed a lawsuit now headed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia against Jerry Zhong, the company\u2019s chief executive and co-owner. They allege that Zhong deceived them into investing over $100 million in the company\u2019s Vancouver-area real estate projects, and deliberately misused those funds to purchase property, feed his own slush fund, and, among other expenditures, acquire 14 artworks worth about $4.9 million.<\/p>\n \n\tThe plaintiffs argue that the art acquisitions were then used to secure a loan of up to $2.4 million, while Coromandel Properties, now indebted by some $497 million, was already in financial hot water. Zhong \u201cmisappropriated the line of credit funds for his own use,\u201d according to court documents, which add that Mo, who doesn\u2019t reside in British Columbia, \u201centrusted Zhong to manage his Canadian business interests and the investment funds in Canada, and generally reposed great trust in Zhong.\u201d Zhong has denied all charges.<\/p>\n \n\tThe legal dispute was recently back in the spotlight after a judge granted the defendant\u2019s request to have a total of three active lawsuits against him heard together. <\/p>\n \n\tMeanwhile, the whereabouts of the 12 paintings and two sculptures are all unknown, according to the Art Newspaper<\/em>. They include four works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, four by Javier Calleja, as well as one piece each by Rashid Johnson, George Condo, Sam Gilliam, Tania Marmolejo, Tammi Campbell, and Jordy Kerwick. They were reportedly purchased through Centre of International Contemporary Art Vancouver (CICA) and Talisman Gallery.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the past, Coromandel Properties sponsored Vancouver Art Gallery blockbuster exhibitions, such as \u201cClaude Monet\u2019s Secret Garden\u201d in 2017 and a solo show for Takashi Murakami the following year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/basquiat-george-condo-caught-in-vancouver-real-estate-fraud-lawsuit-1234793662\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/basquiat-portrait.jpg?w=1024″] There is a new development in an ongoing fraud lawsuit against the leader of the collapsed Vancouver-based developer Coromandel Properties, whose chief executive allegedly misappropriated funds to acquire an art collection, reports The Vancouver Sun. In 2023, Junchao Mo, a Chinese seed investor and part-owner of Coromandel Properties, and his two sons, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2067576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2067576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2067576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2067576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2067576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2067576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}