Georges Lederman

Select examples of Georges’ prior firm experience include:

• Represented a prominent dealer in ancient coins who has been charged by the New York County District Attorney’s Office with having created a false provenance for the world’s rarest and most valuable ancient coin.
• Represented an auction house under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for having imported into the U.S. stolen ancient coins.
• Represented an antiquities dealer who has been indicted by the New York County District Attorney’s Office and accused of being the mastermind behind an international smuggling ring that has stolen $145 million of cultural heritage property from India.
• Represented prominent art galleries before the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control with anti-money laundering compliance.
• Represented a “commercial paleontologist” who was charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with smuggling dinosaur fossils from Mongolia into the U.S., assembling a life-size Tyrannosaurus skeleton and selling it at auction. The case became the subject of an award-winning book entitled “The Dinosaur Artist” in 2018.
• Represented the authors of an artist’s catalogue raisonné who were accused in a federal action of fraud involving the purchase and resale of one of the artist’s paintings.
• Represented one of the leading dealers in New York of South Asian antiquities who was charged by the New York County District Attorney’s Office with the theft of cultural heritage property from foreign countries and its importation into the U.S.
• Represented art collectors in a proceeding against the New York County District Attorney’s Office in a dispute as to title to an archaic marble bull’s head.
• Represented the owner of antiquities valued at $90 million in a federal action against the Swiss Government for unlawful seizure and a violation of international law.
• Represented targets and witnesses in New York State sales tax investigations conducted by the New York County District Attorney’s Office, New York State Attorney General’s Office and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance involving the purchase of high value artwork.
• Represented a dealer of fine minerals in an investigation conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office into the theft of high-value minerals.
• Represented collectors in an investigation conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service involving the seizure of items containing endangered species material.