Law, crime and regulation

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.

Silver and jewellery with a total value of around £20,000 was stolen in a raid at Chilcotts auctioneers in Honiton, Devon, in the early hours of Friday, December 4.

The art and antiques trade is mourning the loss of prints dealer Justin Skrebowski, who was murdered in what appears to have been a random knife attack in Abingdon.

An antiques shop owner in Kent has removed a blackamoor sign from outside her shop after social media users claimed it was offensive.

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.

In response to the new Consumer Rights Act, the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers have produced two different versions of their model terms and conditions – one for bricks and mortar ‘onsite’ auctions and another for online-only sales.

The German Cultural Property and Heritage Protection Law (Kulturschutzgesetz) is due to be debated in the German Bundestag next spring after a “defused” draft of the law received cabinet approval on November 4.

A late 18th century bust of the Goddess Diana which was looted from the Royal Lazienki Palace in Warsaw by the Nazis has been returned to Poland after emerging at auction in Vienna.

“There are 12 symbols in the Chinese language for the word fake – and each means something slightly different”.

Police are appealing for help from the antiques trade to trace two men captured on CCTV at the scene of a watches burglary in London.

Police are investigating the theft of a distinctive painting from a house in the Old Town, Hastings.

Staff at The Swan at Tetsworth say it is ‘business as usual’ despite the dramatic ram-raid at the Oxfordshire antiques centre last weekend.

Thieves who target cultural property or items of great sentimental value will face tougher sentences under new rules.