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Famed US comedian Jerry Seinfeld has settled a lawsuit with a Jersey company over a $1.5m ‘fake’ Porsche.
The settlement was recently disclosed in papers filed with a Manhattan court, ending a long-running legal spat over a “exclusive” car that turned out to be nothing of the sort.
The source of the dispute was a car purporting to be 1958 Porsche 356 A 1500 GS/GT Carrera Speedster which a company called Fica Frio, which is registered in New Street, bought from the ‘Jerry Seinfeld Collection’ at an auction in Florida in 2016.
According to court papers, Fica Frio is connected to Carlos Monteverde, whose mother is Brazilian-born, Monaco-based billionaire philanthropist Lily Safra.
A description of the vehicle at auction said that it was one of an exclusive batch of under 60 and was a “stunning example of a rare thoroughbred Porsche” and would appeal to the collector who “demands only the very best”.
However, a year after purchasing the vehicle, Fica Frio had the vehicle assessed by a Porsche expert before preparing it for resale, when they were informed that it was a fake.
Fica Frio representatives contacted Mr Seinfeld to demand a refund in 2018, to which he replied in a voicemail message that he’d heard about the “counterfeit car” and apologised for the “nuisance”.
The comedian further promised that Fica Frio would be “completely indemnified in full and not have to keep the car and get all your money back”,
However, the company say they never heard back from Mr Seinfeld or received their money.
Mr Seinfeld himself said that he didn’t know the Porsche was not authentic when he bought it for $1.2m in 2013, and asked the dealer that he bought it from, called European Collectibles, to sort it out with Fica Frio.
But the dealer refused, and the comedian launched a third-party complaint against the business.
“Mr. Seinfeld, who is a very successful comedian, does not need to supplement his income by building and selling counterfeit sports cars,” the third-party complaint said, according to Reuters.
The in-principle settlement was disclosed last week and is subject to final documents being signed.
Pictured top: Jerry Seinfeld at the Emmy Awards in the 1990s. (Alan Light/Wikipedia)
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