It is common knowledge among all Park West Gallery auctioneers who have contacted Fine Art Registry that Plymouth Auctioneering is and always has been a shell or a sham corporation - used by Park West Gallery and the cruise lines to escape liability. Personnel employed by the cruise lines are often used by Park West Gallery auctioneers to assist in its auctions. The cruise line employees are paid directly by Park West Gallery auctioneers (who by virtue of the Park West/Plymouth set up are considered as third-party contractors) - the perfect racket to escape liability. Over the three years of investigation, we have gathered documented evidence of cruise line personnel being employed or used regularly by Park West Gallery auctioneers to assist in the sale of its art. For a recent example of this practice, see James Egan's story. The cruise line personnel who assist with the auctions are paid by Park West Gallery auctioneers out of their commissions - and presumably in cash.
What follows is information we recently received from a Park West Gallery insider. Much of the information we are receiving concerning Plymouth Auctioneering, Park West Gallery, and the cruise lines is being reserved to share with Federal law enforcement authorities. The information comes to us from a reliable source who for obvious reasons, wishes to remain anonymous.
The whole concept of employment used to bother me when I was in the [cruise] industry. My objection was to the employment practices within the industry, not the personnel. I personally had a number of fantastic guys helping me out with the art program and I know that the Filipinos were highly appreciative of the opportunity that I gave them.
One of the interesting things regarding offshore recruitment was: Mark Scaglione is/was married to a Romanian girl who they used to set up a recruitment program out of Romania. These guys were employed as 'Art Stewards'. Their job was to work for us (auctioneers/art directors) to move the art, [and] deal with the flyer distribution etc.
The personnel were of very questionable quality. I had a number of them work for me and I think the idea was that we would not be drawing on the resources of the ship. There were a number of 'issues' with us employing crew, as our pay was substantially better than the cruise lines' pay. And it became a little mafia like, as to who would get to work for us.
The cruise lines have been remiss in so many areas as to employment conditions and it took some serious litigation and fines handed out to the likes of CCL and RCCL for them to all of a sudden have an epiphany and suddenly really start to be concerned about hours worked, etc.
Auctioneer Pay:
We were not required to have an off-shore account although some did. I had accounts with Bank of America, Citibank, and my own indigenous account, so that issue was not a problem. I suspect it would have been preferable for all Auctioneers to have off-shore accounts as it could not be traceable to Park West. I mean Park West was not in anyway, shape or form employing non US citizens to work on US owned cruise ships were they?.......... right [wink-wink].
The commissions were paid monthly—wired to our accounts from the Turks as per the contract. This again was not an issue and to their credit it was facilitated well.
For most of the auctioneers the pay was ridiculously good and remember the majority of these 'art directors' were ex shoppies, Steiners, casino [personnel], so to get a wire transfer of $10,000 was like winning the lottery and you could see it at the [auctioneer] conferences - all of a sudden, these little puppets would be [dressed] in Saks on Fifth Avenue suits, spurting all sorts of crap about their last cruise. You can dress a pig up in a black chiffon evening gown and lipstick...but it's still a pig.
I hope that the guys that are still out there on the ships take a good hard look at themselves and look at themselves in the mirror before they head to the auction room on the ship and ask themselves this: 'Am I selling real art and is what I am about to do legitimate and true? Would I sell this to my parents or friends? Am I able to look at my potential clients in the eye knowing that I have sold them a product that WILL return them a good financial reward in the future knowing what I know now?' If there is any doubt in their mind I suggest to them that they walk away now.
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