As if out of his senses, collector and new multimillionaire Torsten Br\u00f6han sued the journalist and operator of this website, Marcus Johst, and attempted to inhibit media coverage about himself, not shying away from lying to a German court.<\/p>\n

Br\u00f6han acted especially aggressive against Johst in 2015 with regard to the purchase price for his collection of 7,000 design classics to the city of Hangzhou.<\/p>\n

More information on Torsten Br\u00f6han you\u2019ll find \u2192 here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many Chinese and international media outlets had reported about the sale of\u00a0 his collection for \u20ac 55 millions. Johst proceeded likewise, considering himself on the safe side by referring to these articles. But Br\u00f6han pushed through that Johst is not allowed to mention this sum. He made an affidavit in order to underpin his credibility before the responsible judge.<\/p>\n

This is the wording of the affidavit:<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing the penalty of perjury under the laws, I herewith affirm before the court in lieu of oath: \u2026the alleged purchase price of \u20ac 55 millions \u2026 is wrong by more than 10 percent\u2026\u201c<\/p>\n

Johst had to delete the corresponding text parts and bore substantial judicial costs arising from the proceedings. I report about this in \u2192 this article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The following is generally valid: making an affidavit before a German court and lying thereby and causing damage to the opposing party is fraud and bears the risk of custodial sentence of up to five years or a fine.<\/p>\n

Fraud is anything but a small offence. Who commits perjury has to be driven by substantial criminal energy.<\/p>\n

Years later, in late 2018, when Br\u00f6han still fought over the collection\u2019s purchase commission with his former consultant Stephan Balzer, Torsten Br\u00f6han had his lawyer Ralf Kemper present the following at court:<\/p>\n

\u201e\u2026is the information provided that the purchase price agreed upon between Br\u00f6han Art Design Ltd. and China Academy of Arts sums up to \u20ac 55 millions…\u201c<\/p>\n

After all \u2013 a purchase price of \u20ac 55 millions! Why did Br\u00f6han lie when he sued Johst? Br\u00f6han did not react to a respective inquiry until this article was published.<\/p>\n

Back to the trial Balzer against Br\u00f6han. In a terse letter to court Br\u00f6han\u2019s lawyer attempted to get his act together by claiming that the vendor hadn\u2019t been Br\u00f6han himself but Hong Kong based Broehan Art Design Ltd. and that expenses had to be deducted, blah blah… The judge saw through the stunt and was not impressed.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Berlin disctrict court has passed a judgement, Case No. 28 O 14\/14: Torsten Br\u00f6han has to pay a commission of \u20ac 5.5 millions plus interests to Stephan Balzer for the latter\u2019s brokering of Br\u00f6han\u2019s collection of design classics to the city of Hangzhou. The judge sentenced that Br\u00f6han owes Balzer more than \u20ac 6 millions. The decision is not legally effective yet. Br\u00f6han\u2019s lawyer announced that his client will appeal. Here you\u2019ll find \u2192 Stephan Balzer\u2019s press release on this court decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Journalist Marcus Johst is preparing to take legal action. He states in a general declaration: \u201cThe art world is full of big and small cheaters, that\u2019s like folklore. But liars and fraudsters who try to harm others have to be unmasked and sentenced. This applies to the art market exactly as to any other economic sector.\u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As if out of his senses, collector and new multimillionaire Torsten Br\u00f6han sued the journalist and operator of this website, Marcus Johst, and attempted to inhibit media coverage about himself, not shying away from lying…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[52,48],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torsten-broehans-million-dollar-secret.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}