The May 2004 decision of the London High Court in the matter of
Thomson v. Christie's captured the interest of the salacious
British press for its glamorous players: the Canadian heiress, the English
aristocrat, and the international auction house. Taylor Thomson, the
daughter of billionaire newspaper baron, Lord Thomson of Fleet, sued both
the Marquess of Cholmondeley, a bachelor filmmaker with a fortune valued
at over £100 million, and Christie's Auction House, for
misrepresenting a pair of gilt and porphyry urns she purchased from
Cholmondeley at a Christie's sale in London in 1994 for just under
£2 million.