MOSCOW, June 17 (RAPSI) – Richard Fisher from Malibu, USA, asks the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to rule that a complaint against the Petr Konchalovsky Foundation located in Moscow via e-mail was properly serviced and requests entry of default.

Fisher lodged the complaint with the federal court on December 17, 2015. He alleged that the foundation wrongfully declared the oil painting “Still Life with Grinder” by Petr Konchalovsky he owned and planned to sell at an auction a fake.

This January, Fisher made a motion to allow him to service the complaint on the Russian defendant. through U.S. Postal Service. The motion was accompanied by an affidavit from John Pierceall, an attorney for Ancillary Legal Corporation, a company that serves international legal process. Pierceall confirmed that the foundation had its principal place of business in Moscow. He further averred that Russia suspended all judicial cooperation with the United States in civil and commercial matters since July 2003. Russia does not effect service through its Central Authority, in this cast the Russia’s Justice Ministry, which is the method prescribed under the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters (Hague Convention), according to Pierceall.

The U.S. State Department warns in turn that “The Russian Federation refuses to serve letters of request from the United States for service of process presented under the terms of the 1965 Hague Service Convention or to execute letters rogatory requesting service of process transmitted via diplomatic channels.

Due to these complications, Fisher turned to the U.S. court seeking to serve the foundation through U.S. Postal Service. The court declined to grant this request; however, later it granted his motion to serve the foundation by email, since it did not infringe on the Hague Convention.

In his turn, David Steiner, his counsel, submitted an affidavit confirming that Alexander Konov, the Director of the foundation, used email account for some work-related business earlier and could most probably receive the official notification of the process even in spite of the fact that earlier messages remained unanswered.

Late last week, the Fisher’s lawyer lodged a request for entry of default with the court (RAPSI has this document at its disposal), since the defendant failed to file an answer to the complaint or otherwise moved.

According to New York Post, Richard Fisher, an owner of the oil painting “Still Life with Grinder” by Russian artist Konchalovsky, is suing the Petr Konchalovsky Foundation, an organization that declared the painting he owns inauthentic. Fisher bought the painting from Sotheby’s, a corporation dealing in art pieces, in 1991. At a time Sotheby’s declared the painting an authentic work by Konchalovsky.

Fisher tried to sell the painting back to Sotheby’s in 2012 for a price of $800,000, but an organization refused to proceed with the sale and offered to compensate Fisher with $5,922 – a sum he originally paid for the painting, New York Post has reported. Fisher connects this loss with a claim made by Russian art foundation.

Fisher believes that Petr Konchalovsky Foundation did not examine the work because it related on photos instead. California resident demands $800,000 of the lost profit from the Russian foundation.