It is a soap opera that we have been following for years. And the Court of Cassation has normally put an end to it. Do you remember the Ferrari 250 GTO of the Bardinon family, named after Pierre Bardinon, one of the prancing horse brand’s greatest collectors? Considered the most expensive car in the world, it will have to be fully reimbursed by one of the sons of the founder of Mas du Clos, to his brothers and sisters.
We need to put it in context. The last time we had heard of this Ferrari 250 GTO in the heart of a legacy dispute, it was in January 2020. After several years in court, the appeal judgment condemned one of Pierre Bardinon’s sons , Patrick, to reimburse some 36 million euros for the sale of this Ferrari 250 GTO, to his brother Jean-François, and to his sister, Anne. Why ?
To understand, we have to go back to April 2014, when the car in question was sold for $ 46.5 million, to a Taiwanese collector. And the 250 GTO was sold by Patrick, on his behalf. Except that if for him, the car was a gift from his father, his brother and his sister did not hear it that way. Given the amount involved, it can be understood …
However, the gray card was in the name of Patrick. All the difficulty for justice will therefore have been to decide whether the car actually belonged to him, knowing that for Anne and Jean-François, their father put the names of his children randomly on the gray cards of the Ferraris in the collection, without that means that it is not a common heritage. Hence the passage in court to recover their share in the sale of this Ferrari 250 GTO, incidentally the most expensive car in the world.
Prosecuted for breach of trust, Patrick Bardinon had first benefited from a judgment in his favor, before the appeal finally changed the decision. Patrick Bardinon therefore appealed to the Supreme Court, the highest court having rendered its verdict a few days ago: the sale of this Ferrari 250 GTO is therefore considered to be an integral part of the succession.
Patrick Bardinon must therefore finally reimburse his sister and his brother, which, with commissions and late interest, drives the bill up to around 50 million euros!
