Millions Cut From Damages Award In Koch Counterfeit Wine Case

A Manhattan federal judge said a jury verdict awarding billionaire William Koch $12 million in damages for being conned into buying counterfeit wine was “excessive,” and Judge J. Paul Oetken reduced the amount to a little less than $1 million. Eric Greenberg was found guilty in April 2013 of misleading an auction house as to the vintage of 24 bottles of Bordeaux. The “flagrancy” of his ruse deserves some amount of punitive damages, Oetken wrote in his decision, but none of the victims of the fraud were “financially vulnerable.” Koch pursued the case for six years, enlisting 36 lawyers and ultimately asking for $7.8 million in legal fees, a request which the judge rejected.