Steve Jobs' Yacht Released After Security Deposit Posted

Last Friday, we noted that the Jobs family's new yacht had been impounded by Dutch authorities as a result of a dispute over the design fee to be paid to famed French designer Philippe Starck. Starck had claimed that he was due to be paid 9 million for designing the yacht, while the Jobs family said that the agreed rate was 6% of the 105 million construction cost for the yacht, or roughly 3 million less than Starck claimed he was owed.

AFP now reports that the yacht has been freed after the Jobs family posted a security deposit to a bank account.

"The Venus is no longer impounded, we have found a solution," Gerard Moussault, a Hague-based lawyer for the Jobs estate, told AFP.

"A security deposit was paid into a bank account, but I cannot say for how much," Moussault said after French designer Starck last week asked Amsterdam bailiffs to seize the sleek 70-metre (230-foot) yacht.

The yacht remains in harbor in Amsterdam due to bad weather, and the report notes that the yacht is scheduled to be transported by ship to the United States to be turned over to the Jobs family at an unspecified date.