Sotheby’s Appoints New Legal, Compliance Leaders

Sotheby’s has installed new legal and compliance leaders two months after overhauling its top management.

A spokeswoman for the auction house confirmed Wednesday to Bloomberg Law the company’s hire of Marco DeSanto as general counsel and promotion of Cecilia Fletcher to worldwide head of compliance. Both lawyers are in the process of relocating to New York, where Sotheby’s has its headquarters, and weren’t immediately available to discuss their new positions.

Fletcher, a former solicitor at Baker McKenzie and DLA Piper, has spent nearly the past decade at Sotheby’s in London. Prior to her promotion last month, she most recently served as the company’s head of compliance and business integrity for Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and India.

Sotheby’s hired DeSanto from Tenneco Inc., a suburban Chicago-based company that acquired his previous employer, rival auto parts manufacturer Federal-Mogul Holdings Corp.

DeSanto spent the past year as senior vice president of legal at Tenneco in Southfield, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, which was where Federal-Mogul was based prior to its $5.4 billion sale to Tenneco that closed in October 2018.

DeSanto began his legal career in the mid-1990s at Michigan-based law firm Warner Norcross & Judd before leaving private practice in 2005 to take a series of in-house roles at German auto giant Daimler AG. From 2012 to 2016, DeSanto served as North America general counsel for Atlanta-based Mercedes-Benz USA LLC, the primary U.S. distributor for Daimler-owned passenger vehicles.

Federal-Mogul hired DeSanto in 2016 to serve as co-general counsel with Michelle Taigman following the departure of its former legal chief Brett Pynnonen, now general counsel at auto parts giant Visteon Corp. DeSanto also served as chief compliance officer at Federal-Mogul, where Taigman handled corporate secretary responsibilities. She is now general counsel at Harman International Industries Inc.

Sotheby’s Shakeup

DeSanto and Fletcher start their new positions at Sotheby’s following the company’s $2.7 billion acquisition last year by prominent art collector and French telecommunications billionaire Patrick Drahi.

Drahi’s BidFair USA LLC, advised by Hughes Hubbard & Reed and Ropes & Gray, closed in October on its purchase of Sotheby’s, which was represented on the deal by Sullivan & Cromwell. Sotheby’s faced litigation over the going-private sale, although court records show most of those lawsuits have either been dismissed, resolved, or stayed.

Bloomberg News reported in December on a series of staff changes at Sotheby’s after Drahi completed his acquisition. Among those leaving the company at year’s end were former global general counsel Jonathan Olsoff, former global chief compliance counsel and head of government and regulatory affairs Jane Levine, and ex-chief commercial officer John Cahill.

Olsoff and Cahill reunited in February by forming New York-based art law boutique Olsoff Cahill Cossu. Bloomberg Law also reported last month that Vladimir Kleyman, a senior transactional lawyer in the lending and finance arm of Sotheby’s, is leaving to become the first general counsel for on-demand pay startup DailyPay Inc. Kleyman said his departure was unrelated to the sale of Sotheby’s and its subsequent reorganization.

A House of Lawyers

Sotheby’s has a long history of employing lawyers in roles outside its legal group. Kevin Ching, a former partner at Johnson Stokes & Master, a Hong Kong-based law firm now part of Mayer Brown, has served as CEO of Sotheby’s Asia since 2006. Former Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz partner Adam Chinn spent almost two years as COO of Sotheby’s until leaving the company in late 2018.

Sotheby’s also hired former Herrick, Feinstein art law partner Mari-Claudia Jiménez as a managing director of its fiduciary client group and valuations team in late 2016. She is now head of that unit, which according to the company’s website “provides concierge-level service to fiduciaries, executors, and beneficiaries” seeking assistance in the “valuation and disposition of tangible personal property.”

Bloomberg Law data shows that since 2007, Sotheby’s has turned to Sidley Austin and Weil, Gotshal & Manges to handle more than 20% of its litigation portfolio. Within the least three-to-five years, Sidley has handled roughly 30% of Sotheby’s litigation caseload, with other firms like Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, Withers Bergman, Hogan Lovells, Pryor Cashman, and Schulte Roth & Zabel picking up the rest.