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15 February 2017

Audrey Hepburn’s son in image fight with children’s fund

The son of late British actress Audrey Hepburn has become entangled in a lawsuit with the Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund, a charity set up in her name.

Filed at the Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, February 8, the lawsuit accused Hepburn’s eldest son, Sean Ferrer, of interfering with the charity’s work for his own benefit.

At issue is the right for the fund to continue using Hepburn’s name, likeness and image in connection with exhibitions.

The fund raises money for children’s charities with exhibits of Hepburn memorabilia, centring on a collection of gowns designed by Hubert de Givenchy and worn by Hepburn.

At the centre of the dispute are claims that in 2013 and 2016, Ferrer delayed or stopped exhibitions in Australia and South Korea.

According to the suit, in January this year Ferrer “threatened” (through his lawyer) to sue a Chinese exhibitor to block multiple shows of Hepburn’s memorabilia in 2017 and 2018.

The Audrey Hepburn Children’s Fund alleged that these actions were taken by Ferrer “for the sole purpose of harming the fund” and preventing it from helping children’s charities.

“Ferrer seeks to entirely control, limit and prohibit the fund from using the Hepburn intellectual property unless it is willing to pay a significant portion of the fundraising proceeds to Ferrer or, as directed by him, to preclude the fund from utilising the Hepburn IP altogether,” said the claim.

In a statement, the fund said it had been established by Hepburn’s two sons, Ferrer and Luca Dotti, and Robert Wolders, Hepburn’s partner of 13 years.

The fund alleged that, back in 2008, Ferrer began to “actively interfere” with the fund.

After convincing Dotti to become fund chairman, Ferrer stepped down from the board and resigned as chairman, said the fund.

After this, the suit claimed, Ferrer “purported to terminate the right of the fund to use the Hepburn IP for fundraising purposes”.

Ferrer’s actions also allegedly included taking control of the fund’s hosting account, which manages its domains and emails, by changing its password, and registering the web addresses hollywoodforchildren.com and hollywoodforchildren.org without obtaining the fund’s consent.

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