Artist in court battle with lawyer brother over £1.3m investment and Monaco apartment

An up-and-coming artist is suing her older brother after accusing him of failing to repay a £1.3m investment.

Chloe Feinberg, who studied at St Martins School of Art and the Royal College of Art, says her brother, a lawyer and sophisticated private investor, had advised her to put part of her inheritance from her mother’s estate into his offshore bank account.

But Ms Feinberg claims that despite repeated requests he has failed to repay any of the money she transferred £1,329,909 to him in May 2018, just months after her mother Amy Feinberg died.

Now Ms Feinberg – some of whose video and animation work is described as a satirical take on consumer capitalism – is suing her brother over the money, and over a share of a condominium apartment in Cannes, France.

Mr Feinberg has lodged a defence against his sister’s claim and is expected to deny her allegations.

Offshore accounts

Ms Feinberg claims in legal documents lodged with the High Court that relied on statements he had made to her, that she would be well-advised to put the money into one of his offshore accounts.

As a result, Ms Feinber claims she transferred the sum from her account with Lloyds Bank into his bank account in Monaco.

The documents claim that Nicholas Feinberg, 49, paid some of the money out on her behalf, leaving an outstanding balance of £961,169, adding that any gains or benefits which are in the hands of his wife Ying Feinberg-Su, also known as Sheena, are under his control.

Ms Feinberg claims that her brother has been unjustly enriched by the money, at her expense, and has used it to make investments, pay living expenses and improve property, leaving him free to use his own money for other purposes.

Mr Feinberg, of Batoum Gardens, London, W6, made a written agreement in March 2023 acknowledging that he owed his sister money, and would repay it by March 30 2023, the court will hear. Despite this, he has not repaid £961,169, she says.

Fiduciary duty 

The artist, who has written a book called Hermetica and produced the short film Love Soldiers, also accuses him of breaching his fiduciary duty to her by failing to repay the capital and any financial benefits and says she made a mistake, as her brother intended at all times to use his possession and control of the money for personal gain and advantage for as long as possible, and there was no objective reason for her to put the money into his control.

Ms Feinberg, of Eastway, east London, says he had undue influence and control over her actions when it came to matters of money, and he exercised control, aggravated by shows of anger, to induce her to leave the money with him.

She has already spent more than £38,000 in legal fees trying to get the money back, and is now selling her three-bedroomed, end-terraced home in Hackney because of lack of money, directly caused by him holding her money, she claims.

Ms Feinberg claims that she and her brothers Nicholas and Geoffrey inherited equal shares in an apartment at the Residence St Michel Valetta in Cannes, which they planned to use for holidays and to rent out through Airbnb.

Sole control

But she says brother Nicholas has assumed sole control of the apartment, keeping back more than one-third of profits from letting it out, and has stopped her from using it when she could have gone there. She estimates she has spent only three weeks a year in the apartment, despite being entitled to use it for one-third of the year.

Now she is seeking orders forcing him to pay her £961,169, an account of gains and benefits he has received from the money including any secret profits he has made, a declaration that the original transfer was obtained by undue influence and is void from the start and of no effect, and a declaration that any funds in his account at his Lombard Odier bank account belong to her, as well as damages.

She is also seeking a declaration that she is entitled to equality of use with her brothers of the apartment, and a third of the net profits from its income, as well as an order for payment of sums found due.