Sirieix died in 1956, and in 1970 his daughter began attempting quietly to sell the valuable manuscript. Unable to sell it privately, in 1998 she finally turned to Christie's to sell it in a public auction, risking an ownership dispute. The ownership of the palimpsest was immediately contested in federal court in New York in the case of the "Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem" v. "Christie's, Inc". The Greek church contended that the palimpsest had been stolen from its library in Constantinople in the 1920s during a period of extreme persecution. Judge Kimba Wood decided in favor of Christie's Auction House on laches grounds, and the palimpsest was bought for $2 million by an anonymous American buyer. Simon Finch, who represented the anonymous buyer, stated that the buyer was "a private American" who worked in "the high-tech industry", but was not Bill Gates.