Law, crime and regulation

THIEVES escaped with £10,000 worth of furniture and antiques in a raid on a dealer in Staffordshire.

CLASS-action legal specialists Garden City Group (GCG) believe compensation cheques linked to the Sotheby’s/Christie’s collusion case will be sent out by August.

Horners Auctioneers in Acle, near Norwich lost half the lots for their auction when thieves broke in the night before the sale.

Dealers are being warned to be vigilant following a suspected cheque fraud at the Summer Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair.

FOUR people linked to a £30m crime spree have denied selling hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of art and antiques.

The buyer of a letter purportedly written by Captain Thomas Hardy from HMS Victory six days after the Battle of Trafalgar has belatedly received a full refund after it proved to be a facsimile of a letter in a public collection.

MONTHS of lobbying and debate over droit de suite have now come to an an end. Parties on all sides have submitted their views to the Patent Office on how the art resale levy should be introduced into the UK and administered.

ONE of the most active scam guide firms, who con the antiques trade into taking out unwanted advertising, are on the march again, despite two court rulings against them.

An English judge has issued a stern warning to those who knowingly sell fake merchandise on eBay, handing a suspended prison sentence to a woman who sold a counterfeit collectable over the auction website for almost £1000.

Ealing Council are appealing for information on the theft of 16 pieces of Martin Brothers pottery from Southall Library in the early hours of Monday, May 23.

London antique dealers Mallett’s of New Bond Street have been awarded €111,533 (£80,000) by the Irish High Court after suing an Irish dealer over a stolen bureau bookcase.

THE scientific tests stacked up. The catalogue description was fair. The buyer got what she paid for. But somehow Christie’s still managed to lose the High Court action brought by special client Taylor Lynne Thomson.

The French art and antiques trade is growing increasingly concerned about heavy-handed police tactics following the recent €15m embezzlement scandal surrounding an employee at a leading French bank.

A GATHERING of Europe’s leading art market professionals is calling on the European Commission to delay extending the worst effects of Droit de Suite after 2012 in the UK.

The beginning of the end is in sight to the lengthy compensation payment process in the ‘international’ tranche of the Sotheby’s-Christie’s price-fixing case.

A LONDON dealer has exposed the latest scam attempting to trick the trade out of thousands of pounds. And, in doing so, he has discovered a quick and simple way of checking whether others have already been defrauded: using the internet.

The Conservatives have vowed to fight Droit de Suite in their election manifesto. “Conservatives believe the Artist’s Resale Right will be highly detrimental to the British art market, and will benefit competitors outside the EU,” the manifesto reads.

THE added tax burden of Droit de Suite, which comes in at the beginning of next year, could be far worse than feared.

Police have announced two dates for a roadshow of objects recovered from what is thought to be a £30m art theft spree.

A SMALL Renoir portrait painted in 1913, with an estimated value of €170,000-200,000 (£120,000-140,000), was stolen from the Tajan premises in Paris shortly before it was to be offered at a sale on March 31.