Russian billionaire files monster lawsuit over yacht paint job

Everyone cheers when someone takes a stand for the little guy. But when an absurdly enormous guy takes a stand for absurdly enormous guys, everyone says he's a creepy idiot with stupid priorities and no perspective on how utterly ridiculous his petulant, clued-out stand really is, and -- I lost my train of thought. My point is: if you're a multibillionaire with an imperfectly painted boat, Andrey Melnichenko just might be your new hero. 

Andrey Melnichenko Photo: Алексиус2

Mr. Melnichenko is a Russian chemical tycoon who, years ago, commissioned the building of a three-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar yacht-thing -- a giganto-boat that looks like it was designed by a team of small boys who root for Darth Vader when they watch "Star Wars".

He then commissioned Akzo Novel -- which owns the paint company Dulux -- to provide a suitable finish. The results were shocking. According to court documents, the paint looked like it had run, and it left the yacht-strosity looking "cloudy" instead of radiant. So Mr. Melnichenko demanded Akzo Novel pay for it to be repainted. The company complied. But the second coat was, quote, "unsatisfactory". He could have let it go.



Andrey Melnichenko's Yacht  Photo: Reuters

But what kind of message would that have sent? That multinational paint companies could just supply not-exactly-perfect paint jobs to multi-million-dollar yachts and get off easy? No. No, Mr. Melnichenko chose heroism. He chose to file a $100,000,000 suit against Akzo Novel -- $72,000,000 of which is, perfectly reasonably, to pay for a replacement vessel while the original is repainted yet again.

Heroes all fight injustice in their own ways. Even if -- as Andrey Melnichenko wants to make very clear -- they're not all in the same boat.