[MSN] Court judge has ordered an art storage company to pay £350,000 for accidentally binning an artwork by Turner Prize winner Anish Kapoor.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

£350,000 damages for 'binned' art  
 
Kapoor with his Tate Modern installation Marsyas 
Photo: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6458283.stm

A High Court judge has ordered an art storage company to pay £350,000 for
accidentally binning an artwork by Turner Prize winner Anish Kapoor. 
The judge ruled that the 1984 sculpture, Hole and Vessel II, was put in a
skip during building works in 2004 and later destroyed at a waste plant. 

Art collector Ofir Scheps, who placed the item with Fine Art Logistics Ltd
of London, will receive the award. 

Kapoor has expressed his "deep regret" over the loss of his artwork. 

"It's an important work in terms of what I was up to then. I only made seven
or eight works that year and it's a shame to lose one of them," said the
Indian-born artist, who won the Turner Prize in 1991. 

Not reasonable 

Swiss-based Mr Scheps called an expert witness who claimed the sculpture
would fetch £580,000. 

But an expert for the defendants valued the artwork at £250,000. 

Mr Justice Teare ruled on a figure of £351,375, comprised of the value of
the piece when it was destroyed, and a sum to reflect the subsequent rise in
value of Kapoor's work. 

Mr Schelps sued the company for damages or the return of the piece, which he
bought in 2004 for £20,000 and put in storage before Kapoor was due to carry
out restoration work. 

Fine Art Logistics admitted that it was impossible to return it because it
had been placed in a skip for disposal, and offered to pay £587.13. 

But the judge ruled that the limit of liability was not reasonable in this
case and there was no evidence that it had offered to arrange insurance. 

Kapoor has become famous in recent years for his large-scale installations,
including Marsyas, a 150-metre sculpture which filled the Tate Modern's
Turbine Hall, and a giant mirror sculpture in New York.