A Paris court dismissed a case against a journalist working for the daily Le Figaro who was accused by Parisian auctioneer Jean-Claude Binoche of having prevented the sale of Vincent Van Gogh's «Garden in Auvers» after publishing an article in which he suggested that such work was a fake. The auctioneer was told that he should have seized a penal jurisdiction and not a civil court. The article written by Jean-Marie Tasset automatically did cast some serious doubts about the authenticity of this painting when it was offered for sale by the heirs of French banker Jean-Marc Vernes who had bought it in 1992 for 55 million FF ($ 7,53 million), a modest sum in view of the fact that the French State had not allowed it to be exported.
Jacques Walter, the previous owner of «Garden in Auvers» notably obtained a $ 20 million compensation after challenging such interdiction and stressing that the painting was worth at least $ 30 million.
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