Law, crime and regulation

Export bars have been placed on the robes and dagger of TE Lawrence (1888-1935), better known as Lawrence of Arabia, in a bid to keep the items in the UK.

Roman and Etruscan antiquities believed to have been obtained from illicit excavations were found by police in 45 crates belonging to Robin Symes, a high-profile British art dealer who served seven months in Pentonville prison in 2005.

Expert witnesses were called to give evidence during legal proceedings between Domenico De Sole, chairman of Sotheby’s, and Ann Freedman, the former president of Knoedler gallery, over the sale of a fake Rothko painting.

Michigan art dealer Eric Spoutz was arrested on February 3 on a federal charge of selling forged artworks.

A painting of a Parisian street scene stolen in New York has been recovered by the Art Recovery Group. The painting had been consigned to a Miami art gallery in November last year by a private individual.

Culture minister Ed Vaizey has placed a temporary export bar on a pair of 17th century Italian ebony, ormolu and hardstone inlaid cabinets in the hope that they can be saved for the nation.

Fake works purporting to be Damien Hirst studio paintings are circulating on the UK regional art and antiques market.

An increasingly bitter spat between two UK art recovery agencies – the Art Loss Register and the Art Recovery Group – has reached the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.

Thames Valley Police are appealing for information following a burglary at the Quiet Woman Antique Centre near Chipping Norton.

Four people have been charged following an investigation into fraud at Stuart Porter Antiques in Stamford, which began in late 2013.

Dealers are again being targeted by scam guides that seek to extort large sums of money in return for inclusion in worthless trade listings.

Police investigating a break-in at Goodwood House, the Chichester home of Lord and Lady March, are appealing for information and to trace irreplaceable stolen jewellery.

Regional auctioneers are being warned that a man who left a trail of unpaid bills a decade ago is again making rogue bids with no means of paying.

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.

Police are hoping to trace the owners of antiques they believe are stolen property.

The New York branch of Mallett and the company’s former director in the Big Apple, Henry Neville, are embroiled in the case brought by US authorities against Robert A Olins, the disgraced former chief executive of a technology company.

Three men have been sentenced to jail for their parts in a spree of antiques thefts perpetrated in January 2014 across the south of England.

The British Antique Dealers’ Association is p09nning to mount a campaign with other business bodies to halt a government plan to require all businesses, regardless of size, to file tax returns on a quarterly, digital basis rather than annually.

The Law Commission, the independent body which reviews laws in England and Wales, have recommended to the government that the term ‘antique firearm’ be defined in statute for the first time.

A retired academic and art lecturer has been handed a six-month suspended sentence after admitting to forging a number of Grosvenor School linocut prints and attempting to pass them off as genuine through various auction houses.