The Fourth Wheel, Issue 73

Only Watch: new first-hand information, plus the facts, the mistakes and the bad takes

Hello and welcome back to the Fourth Wheel, the weekly watch newsletter that… I’m sorry I’ve got to get this off my chest. In the interest of full disclosure and maximum transparency, I have to confess: I am entirely in the pocket of Big Watch. I remain hydrated thanks to an Oris-branded water bottle. A Girard-Perregaux keyring helps me locate my house keys every morning. My head is shielded from the wind by a TAG Heuer cap and warmed by a Hublot scarf. My daughter only survived her first winter thanks to a Cartier blanket… Ok, that last one’s a lie (the blanket was far too nice to actually bring near a newborn baby) but you get the gist: never mind a conflict of interest in my written work, watch brands are quite literally keeping me and my family alive. It feels good to get that off my chest. Now, on with the show.

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I wrote something last week about the sudden outbreak of journalistic scrutiny that descended upon Only Watch - if you haven’t read it, I recommend you catch up there first.

The Fourth Wheel, Issue 72

At the time it was clear this was an evolving story, and plenty has happened since; I also can correct an error that I made in my initial analysis and comment. 

On Monday, Only Watch issued a statement via its Instagram account, linking to an open letter signed by Luc Pettavino, Only Watch’s founder. You can read the letter at the link, but to sum up it sought to clarify the charity’s funding and activity to date, provided more information on the forthcoming audited accounts, and in an appendix it provides some details of the charity’s research spending since 2013. 

The question on everyone’s lips last week was why Only Watch had never published any audited accounts, having taken more than €100m in revenue. Prior to last week, it had not given any significant breakdown on its spending beyond the promise that 99 per cent of funds were allocated to charitable activities/that only 1 per cent was spent on . It suddenly seemed jarring that this high profile auction, with its glamorous world tour to warm up bidders before the big sale, had never given any concrete information about how its money was spent. 

Here’s where I made a misstep; following others’ questioning of the brand through social media, I referenced a Monegasque law from 1922 that covers the behaviour of charitable foundations. Under this law, it would have been necessary for Only Watch to file audited accounts since its beginning. But Only Watch (actually an initiative of AMM, the Association Monegasque contre les Myopathies, or AMM for short) is not a foundation. It is an association, as the name implies. Associations are another type of non-profit entity under Monegasque law and the requirements placed on them are different. Only Watch was entirely correct when it replied to Santa Laura saying that it had filed its accounts with the state (assuming it had done so, but I’ve no reason to think otherwise) and it is correct when it says that until this September¹ it has not had a legal requirement to publish audited accounts. I apologise for the error. 

Only Watch founder Luc Pettavino at Christie’s, 2021

The distinction between what’s legal and what’s right may remain, but is a subjective one. If we, “the watch community”, wanted to hold Only Watch to a higher standard, that’s all well and good, but there was no legal footing to do so. I stand by the statement that donors deserve to know what’s being done with their money, but on that point my issue is with the regulations that have covered associations, not with Only Watch in particular. However, plenty of questions do remain.