The designer of Steve Jobs’s yacht has never been the master of tact. Just a few months after Philippe Starck played up his friendship with Jobs and tastelessly teased the yacht as “revolutionary” Apple product. Gross. His latest cool guy move: having the monster repossessed over a payment dispute.
Reuters reports that the $US100 million yacht was impounded on Wednesday in the Netherlands at the behest of Starck’s lawyers. They say that Starck was only ever paid €6 million of the €9 million he was promised for his work designing the boat.
That’s not exactly chump change, but you gotta wonder if very publicly embarrassing and dragging Jobs’s family into court is really the best and most respectful way to resolve this problem. After all, Starck can’t stop telling the world how he was such good buddies with Jobs. This friendship is the whole basis of Starck’s claims. His lawyers say that because they were close friends the contract ‘wasn’t very detailed’. Well, come on, man! You can’t have your friends and sue them too. [Reuters]
Its not about friendship its about business. If Starck has a contract and the Jobs estate hasn't paid the four million dollars owing then of course he should take possession.
I agree with you Arvo, this is a very sarcastic post by Gizmodo, Stark did what he had to do, 9million bucks is allot of money to be owed, think of all the people that worked on this that have not been paid. What else was he supposed to do? Oh way it's Steve jobs - " very publicly embarrassing and dragging Jobs’s family into court" They chose not to pay!
So exactly what was he meant to do? Just say oh well the guys dead now so I guess that's 4 million dollars I won't be getting? I am pretty sure the Jobs family isn't on the poverty line, and what is owed is owed. I am sure they would have had no trouble taking Starck to court if he owed them the money.
Agreed with all of the above. Why is the Jobs estate exempt from paying bills?
Article totally written by a Steve Jobs zealot... what a load of crap. The guy is owed money, pay the man. Jobs family should be embarrassed and ashamed.
The article states that the, "contract wasn't very detailed," and that Starck was already paid 6 million. It doesn't specify why Starck believes he is owed 3 mil extra. Given this relative paucity of information, the previous commenters are essentially making a BS conclusion. It is equally possible that Starck lost millions to Le Chiffre and is trying to make it up by claiming that his dead best friend verbally promised him 10 bajillion dollars but died before including it in the vague contract.
So you believe Starck's lawyers would impound a $100 million yacht owned by an extremely rich
estate because Starck only thinks he's owed 4 millions dollars? I don't.
So you believe that lawyers only make reasonable claims? I don't.
In any case, depending on what jurisdiction you live in, any creditor can place a caveat on a piece of property if they believe they are owed money by the owner.
Also, article states that, "Starck was only ever paid €6 million of the €9 million he was promised for his work." There's nothing to suggest that Starck is claiming any more than that. Unless he wants punitive damages - oh, lawyers and their reasonable claims.
Sure, why not?
It's as plausible as the Jobs estate trying to skimp out of 3 million when they hardly have cash flow issues, and that 3 million represents a very small amount of the total cost of the boat, let alone their total assets.
I find that statement "the contract ‘wasn’t very detailed’" very vague, and it has been repeated on a number of sites. The statement doesn't exactly inspire confidence in their claims, or their ability to prove anything. Not to say there isn't a lot more to it, but whats come out so far is very wishy washy and given Steve is now deceased, having a poorly conceived written contract could really hurt Starks cause.
Pay you f*cking debts or else. End of lesson.
If that money isn't to make a (fabulous) suit out of iron, I don't know why he's bothering.