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A New York decide has granted a request by Interest Foyer, the US chain of artwork and crafts supplies shops, to switch its case alleging Oxford-based scholar Dirk D. Obbink dedicated fraud and breach of contract to Oklahoma Metropolis, the place the corporate relies. The lawsuit, filed in 2021, stems from seven gross sales of allegedly stolen fragments of historical Egyptian papyrus by Obbink to Interest Foyer—to be featured within the firm’s Washington, DC establishment, the Museum of the Bible (MOTB)—between 2010 and 2013, totalling $7.1m.
The primary six of these gross sales went easily, with Interest Foyer importing the papyrus fragments from Obbink. After the seventh sale, nonetheless, the corporate alleges that Obbink by no means supplied the bought fragments, 4 papyrus items of the New Testomony Gospels. Following greater than 4 years of communications backwards and forwards between the events, Interest Foyer alleges that Obbink claimed he had “mistakenly” offered the fragments, which really belonged to his employer, the non-profit Egypt Exploration Society (EES), which helps archaeological analysis in Egypt and Sudan.
After Interest Foyer demanded Obbink return the $760,000 it had paid for the New Testomony Gospel fragments, the scholar allegedly mentioned he must promote objects from his private assortment to repay the sum. Except for a switch of $10,000, Interest Foyer says it by no means acquired any of the funds. Concurrently, representatives of the MOTB contacted EES and the 2 entities in the end recognized 32 papyrus fragments they declare Obbink stole from his employer to promote to Interest Foyer.
The case had beforehand been dealt with by the US District Court docket for the jap district of New York in Brooklyn. Interest Foyer had filed a movement to have it relocated with the District Court docket for the western district of Oklahoma, in Oklahoma Metropolis, the place the corporate is headquartered. A Justice of the Peace decide in New York granted the corporate’s movement, concurring with a number of arguments for the transfer, together with “as a result of the first witnesses are Interest Foyer staff who dwell and work within the Western District of Oklahoma”.
Interest Foyer operates greater than 900 artwork and craft provide shops across the US, producing $7.7bn in income final yr. The corporate was based within the early Seventies by chief govt David Inexperienced. He and his household are devoutly Christian, and spent an estimated $500m constructing and buying artefacts for the MOTB, an establishment that opened in Washington, DC in 2017. The museum has been plagued with provenance and authenticity points associated to its artefacts, a lot of which it has needed to relinquish—together with, in 2019, the papyrus fragments it bought from Obbink.
(Interest Foyer famously prevailed in a case determined by the US Supreme Court docket in 2014, which allowed it to refuse to supply staff with sure reproductive well being supplies on the grounds that doing so went in opposition to the corporate’s non secular beliefs.)
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