An art dealer for Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly allegedly made “secret and unauthorised profits” while buying, selling, and loaning artwork on their behalf.
The TV presenters say they paid £550,000 for one set of Banksy works but the seller apparently only received £300,000. They want to know what happened to the other £250,000.
They believe there is a “good arguable case” that they are the victims of wrongdoing by the unnamed art dealer over their “personal and joint art collection”, the High Court heard on Tuesday.
They had enlisted a consultant, referred to only as X and their company as X Limited in the court hearing, to help them build up their contemporary art collection.
The dealer brokered deals including the £550,000 purchase of a set of six prints in which Banksy depicted model Kate Moss as actress Marilyn Monroe in the style of Andy Warhol.
Their lawyers asked a judge to order a separate art dealer, Andrew Lilley and his company Lilley Fine Art, to disclose information on their dealings with X.
McPartlin - who recently moved to a £10 million mansion in Surrey - and Donnelly do not claim Lilley and his company committed wrongdoing, instead believing they were “mixed up in the wrongdoing”.
The court told it was “likely” that Lilley and his company “hold information that will help the applicants uncover wrongdoing”, per MailOnline.
The presenters’ barrister Harry Martin said there were at least 22 cases of Lilley and his firm being involved in buying artwork from the TV duo, totalling a “substantial sum”.
One of the pieces was a £13,000 Banksy work titled Napalm.
X Limited received £10,450 after the deduction of X's £550 commission, according to remittance.
Martin said this “gives the impression that the respondents paid £13,000, X told the applicants that they had in fact paid £11,000, and there is a discrepancy of £2,000 between the two”.
X had also been receiving sums of money and “keeping some” while telling McPartlin and Donnelly that the figure received was smaller, according to Martin.
“The wrongdoing that is suspected is that X and X Limited made secret and unauthorised profits,” he said.
Martin said asking Lilley and his company to disclose their dealings was the only way to “get the truth”.
He added that Lilley, who did not attend the hearing, and his company do not oppose the bid but were “not willing to provide what they have without a court order”.
McPartlin and Donnelly are prepared to compensate Lilley and his company for complying with the order, court filings stated.
Judge Iain Pester said he would rule on whether to order the disclosure and if X and X Limited can be identified at 10am on Wednesday.
