Court says Hallingby owns the rare Ferrari

SHARON — In what must be one of the longest-running ownership disputes of any item ever, a U.S. District Court has ruled that Paul “Barney” Hallingby Jr. is in fact the owner of a rare 1957 Ferrari.

Hallingby is a resident of Sharon, which is where he stores the car (and other autos in his collection of vintage makes). The court ruling was made in March by the district court for Connecticut. 

Hallingby purchased the Ferrari in 2000 from a friend and fellow Ferrari collector, Scott Rosen. In the extensive documentation surrounding this case (including a 1,177-page Connecticut State Police warrant from 2009), Rosen and Hallingby claim that they did a thorough check on the provenance of the car. Rosen shared his own collection of papers that he had received when he purchased the vehicle. 

He and Hallingby claim that they even asked FBI agent Ken Crook to investigate the provenance of the car. Hallingby mentioned Crook in his testimony in a 2009 lawsuit he filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York (which includes New York City). 

That suit was against a company that publishes the Ferrari Market Letter and which had published advertisements in 2008 from a Swiss doctor named Andreas Gerber, who claimed that he was the true owner of the Ferrari and that it had been stolen from him in Marbella, Spain, in 1993. 

Since then he had been searching for the car; he claimed he didn’t know where it was until 2008, when he discovered it was in the possession of Hallingby. He then began advertising in the newsletter and saying that Hallingby was in illegal possession of the car.

  Hallingby sued the company that published the ads; they settled out of court in 2012.

Ferrari enthusiasts and car publications have weighed in on Gerber’s claims that the car had been hidden away for many years by noting that Hallingby had taken the rare vintage auto to many high-profile car shows — including some where it won awards. The publication Sports Car Market offered an extensive timeline of the Ferrari’s show history, ending the list with the notation, “Its location was hardly a secret.”

Hallingby has said he is ready to sell the car. Its value isn’t listed in most of the articles about the ongoing dispute, but a 2008 New York Post article claimed that Hallingby bought the car for $550,000, but that its estimated value at that time was between $5 million and $10 million. Because of the disputes of the ownership, however, Hallingby said that he was unable to interest anyone in purchasing the auto. 

The decision by the Connecticut District Court affirms that Hallingby is the undisputed owner. It notes that the statute of limitations on the alleged theft of the car has run out; and it cites the legal term oflaches, which means essentially that Gerber waited too long to seek legal remedy.

The decision on the case, by Judge Janet Bond Arterton, notes that Gerber refused to testify in the case because he disputed the court’s jurisdiction. The court claimed to have jurisdiction because Hallingby lives in Sharon and keeps the car at his home there.

Arterton ruled that Hallingby is “the sole and rightful owner of the Ferrari.” She also said that Gerber is enjoined from taking any kind of legal action against Hallingby regarding the car; making claims in public that Hallingby isn’t the owner of the car or claiming that he (Gerber) is the rightful owner; or interfering with Hallingby’s efforts to sell the car. 

Hallingby sent out a statement to The Lakeville Journal earlier this month, saying that, “This definitive final judgment by the only court in the world with legal jurisdiction over 0799 GT finally settles the issue once and for all and affirms my clear legal ownership, despite more than a decade of harassment by Andreas Gerber.” 

The press release claims that the car is “one of only 40 such vehicles ever made” and that it was “purchased by Barney Hallingby in 2000, after due diligence by a team of professionals experienced in investigating the provenance of antique automobiles.”

Regarding Gerber’s claims that the Ferrari was stolen in Spain, the press release said that,  “a previous dispute about the car was not a criminal matter of theft, but a civil matter over a breach of contract claimed by previous owner Bernard Friedli. That claim had been finally and definitively resolved by four Spanish courts against Mr. Friedli, which meant the car was able to be legally purchased by Hallingby.”

The press release describes Gerber’s pursuit of Hallingby by saying that, “In 2008, after Hallingby owned and openly showed 0799 GT for many years, Dr. Andreas Gerber of Switzerland began a campaign of harassment of Mr. Hallingby to extort a ransom payment by falsely claiming that the car had been stolen from him and Mr. Friedli in 1993.”

The release quotes Hallingby as saying that, “In 25 years, Andreas Gerber has never filed suit to officially claim ownership of 0799 GT and he declined to participate in the Connecticut court proceedings that could have independently considered his claim.”

After rulings in Hallingby’s favor by four Spanish courts and the Connecticut court, Hallingby said, “it’s time for [Gerber’s] misleading harassment campaign to end.”