Endangered Species

A Superior Court judge in Los Angeles heard the opening salvos in a legal challenge to California’s uncompromising law that bans the sale of practically all ivory objects – including those fashioned from narwhal and walrus tusks and sperm whale teeth.

Leaders of art and antiques trade bodies from key markets are due to discuss the rising tide of regulation against ivory, and the consequent threat to the trade of antique ivory, when they meet at the annual gathering international dealers in Paris later this week.

A leading CITES lawyer is warning that UK auctioneers and dealers risk hefty fines due to widespread confusion over the rules controlling the sale of antique ivory.

Another firm has been fined for breaching CITES regulations. South Lanarkshire auctioneers LS Smellie and Son were fined £1500 earlier this month for offering three items of unworked ivory for sale last year.

French art market associations have protested at environment minister Ségolène Royal’s plan to push for “a ban on any kind of ivory trade in France”.

A series of antique weapons were sold by Bonhams earlier this month missing their ivory elements after the items had been surrendered to the UK’s Border Force.

Christie’s have admitted to “an honest and genuine mistake” by putting up for sale an ivory and kutch silver trophy that contravened CITES regulations.

A dozen protesters dressed as elephants gathered outside Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury last week to demonstrate against the sale of ivory at the firm’s Asian art sale.

Joseph Chait, a 38-year-old senior auction administrator with IM Chait gallery and auction house in Beverly Hills, has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to smuggle items of rhino horn, ivory, coral and a hornbill casque.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service have announced a new programme to “help reduce the overall ivory market”.

Four London dealers were made to deface valuable antiques after they imported objects into the US without declaring their ivory content.

Hong Kong is to tighten its rules on ivory.

Ivory collectors in California are suing the state in the hope of overturning restrictive legislation that comes in to force on July 1 this year.

An antique narwhal tusk that faced destruction following a dispute over paperwork has been returned to its owner after a judge ruled its confiscation by customs had been “unreasonable”.

Senior figures from both UK dealing associations gave an impassioned defence of the antiques trade as a project seeking to gauge the impact of a ban on the sale of ivory works of art was launched in Westminster last week.

Stakeholders in the art market are being asked to participate in a project seeking to gauge the effect of a total ban on the sale of ivory works of art in the UK.

Following a long legal battle, London dealer Joost van den Bergh has successfully overturned a controversial customs decision to seize three rare 17th century ivories.

A London dealer has welcomed a new wide-ranging bill aimed at amending the law passed in the US last year banning the commercial trade in elephant ivory.

A leading CITES lawyer has criticised DEFRA’s “wholesale failure” to alert the public to law changes, after a court fined a jeweller £2000 for selling antique tiger claw pendants.

The law on tiger jewellery is frequently flouted. Last week on eBay – a site that operates a ban on antique ivory – several items of big cat jewellery were on sale from UK vendors.