Yves Bouvier

Natural Transports was formed in 1859 as a moving and furniture storage company.

It later became Natural Le Coultre in 1901, when Albert-Maurice Natural joined Emile-Étienne Le Coultre to create A. Natural, Le Coultre & Cie.

The company's office was located in Geneva.

The firm was mainly dealing with commodity deliveries, including fruits, equipment and Red Cross parcels during the First World War.

In 1953, Jean-Jacques Bouvier began an apprenticeship at Natural Le Coultre S.A. 30 years later in 1983, the Bouvier family acquired Natural Le Coultre.

Yves Bouvier (born 8 September 1963) is a Swiss businessman and art dealer best known for his role in the Bouvier Affair that resulted in criminal charges being brought against him in France and Monaco.

He was the president of Natural Le Coultre, an international company specialized in the transportation, storage, scientific analysis, and conservation of works of art, luxurious goods and other collectibles.

In 1989, Jean-Jacques and Yves Bouvier formed Fine Art Transports Natural Le Coultre SA in Geneva, which provided moving and furniture storage services to the local companies.

Hoping that Yves would keep leading the family business, Jean-Jacques Bouvier promoted his son to the position of assistant manager in 1995 and then managing director in 1997, selling the moving and furniture storage activities to a local company to focus the company on storing, moving, and preserving pieces of art.

In 2004 Bouvier founded the company Art Culture Studio that organizes cultural events, restores furniture, and provides support to the Renaissance Foundation for Russian Country Homes, a non-profit organization that supports research on the restoration of cultural and historic buildings in rural areas.

He initiated and chaired the Moscow World Fine Art Fair in 2004, a yearly exhibition taking place in May for art dealers and collectors.

He also contributed to the establishment of the Salzburg World Fine Art Fair.

Bouvier exported the freeport concept, and in 2005, expanded his business model abroad by creating "artistic hubs" grouped into freeport facilities that offer services and rental facilities to art collectors, museums and companies, expanding into Singapore in 2010 and Luxembourg in 2014.

Yves Bouvier moved to Singapore in 2009 where he currently resides.

Bouvier built a subsidiary to the Geneva freeport in Singapore in 2010, after the idea was floated with the Singaporean government as early as 2005.

Art Culture Studio helped renovate the 18th century furniture for the boudoir of Empress Josephine in 2012.

The freeport was inaugurated on 17 September 2014.

In 2015, Bouvier initiated the creation of the Singapore Pinacothèque de Paris, an expansion of Pinacothèque de Paris.

Furthermore, a 2016 UNESCO report detailed the possibility that freeports can be used by art dealers to trade stolen, looted or illegally excavated objects, even many years later.

The facilities have been alleged to be a point of sale for expensive art, for example, to museums.

The oldest freeport facility, the Swiss government holds the majority stake of 85 percent with Bouvier holding a 5 percent stake.

The museum was closed in 2016 without explanation.

In September 2017, it emerged that Bouvier is under criminal investigation by Swiss authorities amid allegations that he may have evaded more than 100 million euros in taxes related to his cross-border art dealings.

Under Bouvier's control, Natural Le Coultre owned 5 percent of the Geneva freeport, but the company was sold to André Chenue, a Parisian shipping firm, in 2017 for an undisclosed amount.

In 2017, in line with the investigation into Bouvier's potential tax-evasion, Federal Tax Administration (FTA) officials temporarily sequestered one of Natural Le Coultre's buildings in Geneva, worth 4.5 million Swiss francs.

Another facility was planned in Shanghai for 2017, though the project has been suspended.

The freeports have been subject of increased scrutiny by authorities and governments in recent years.

For example, a study by the European Parliament’s think tank described their high security and discretion as a risk for tax evasion and money laundering.

A European Commission report also concluded that these facilities "could be abused for trade of counterfeited goods, money laundering and other crime if no sufficient checks are carried out to identify the owners of companies using them."

Bouvier sold his majority participation in 2017, after the Swiss government passed stricter oversight rules over customs warehouses.

According to media reports, the freeport has been linked to the trafficking of looted artifacts from Syria, and is regarded as a risk for money-laundering and tax-evasion operations by the European Union.

However, the Singapore freeport has been for sale since 2017 but a buyer is yet to be found.

In February 2018, meanwhile, the Geneva Prosecutor reportedly opened a new criminal investigation into Bouvier relating to an indictment on charges of fraud.

Yves Bouvier was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the son of Jean-Jacques Bouvier, owner of Natural Le Coultre, a 150-year-old company specialized in moving and storing goods.

Yves Bouvier early developed an interest in art, and dropped out of college to join his father's company in the eighties.

It has been under criticism from the EU since 2018, when it was found to be an enabler for tax evasion by two MEPs.

The facilities host primarily works of art, but vintage cars, wine, jewelry, and gold bars of Deutsche Bank until July 2019, when the bank ceased its usage of the facility.

Unlike in Geneva's freeport, in which Bouvier is a minority stakeholder, he holds a majority stake in the Singapore facility, describing the idea of the facility a "great success."

German MEP Wolf Klinz in 2019 demanded the freeport be closed for its alleged role in facilitating money laundering and tax evasion.

After another visit to the facility later that year, several more MEPs echoed the call to phase out freeports across the EU, calling them a “black hole” beyond the authorities’ control.