ACG Sues Leibovitz Over $24 Million Loan

 

NEW YORK, NY (July 31, 2009) – Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz has been sued by a New York finance company that claims Leibovitz has reneged on a $24 million loan.

Art Capital Group says that Leibovitz, who borrowed the money last year when she was in "dire financial straights" with unpaid bills, tax liens, an mortgage payments, has breached their contract by refusing them access to her real estate and photographic collections that were collateral for the loan.

ACG says the contract gave them the right to sell Leibovitz's photographs and her homes in Manhattan's Greenwich Village and in Rhinebeck, in upstate New York, and that Leibovitz is now trying to ignore those obligations.

A spokesperson for Leibovitz told the Associated Press that the lawsuit, filed this week in New York's Supreme Court, is part of ACG's "continued harassment" of Leibovitz.

The New York Times reports the suit says Leibovitz is engaged in "boldly deceptive conduct," and that the contract gives ACG the right to sell Leibovitz's homes "and every photograph she's ever taken."

The suit says Leibovitz an ACG had a one-year credit agreement for $22 million that started in September 2008, and that Leibovitz had withdrawn $5 million from the credit line and had agreed that her homes and photographs would have to be sold as part of her financial restructuring. Then in December 2008, the suit says, Leibovitz entered into a new agreement with ACG that raised her credit line to $24 million and she agreed then to give ACG the rights to sell her pictures and homes to pay back the loan.

The suit says that since that last agreement Leibovitz has refused to cooperate in any efforts to sell her homes or photographs, not allowing real estate representatives to appraise her homes.

The New York Times says the credit line expires September 8 and when that happens, the $24 million is due in full plus interest and expenses, according to the lawsuit.

 

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