Legal Cases

The extent to which a provincial auctioneer should be liable for underselling a work of art is again under scrutiny as a vendor threatens legal action.

THE head of one of the United States’ biggest industrial conglomerates has quit the company after being indicted on charges of sales tax evasion on paintings valued at $13m.

A VENDOR has been ordered to pay more than £10,000 legal costs after a picture he sold at auction proved not to be by the famous German artist to whom it was attributed.

ALFRED Taubman, who has just announced an appeal against his collusion conviction, has started the ball rolling in his bid to sell his controlling stake in Sotheby’s.

In a second attempt to have his price-fixing conviction overturned, former Sotheby’s auction house chairman A. Alfred Taubman has asked an appeals court to reconsider his case, citing errors by the trial judge. “This was not a fair fight,” lawyers for the Bloomfield Hills multimillionaire said when filing the 95-page appeal document on May 21.

AN ex-Cambridge University student, jailed for four years for plundering priceless historical book collections, may face a stiffer sentence unless he repays hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Former Sotheby’s chief executive Diana ‘Dede’ Brooks was sentenced to six months ‘home detention’ last Monday after pleading guilty to fixing commissions for vendors with Christie’s between 1993 and 1999.

A FORMER Cambridge University student who plundered priceless historical book collections, stealing works valued at over £1m, has been jailed for four years.

The former chairmen of Sotheby’s and Christie’s faced different but equally humiliating fates last week following the auction house price-fixing scandal.

SOTHEBY’S former chairman, A. Alfred Taubman, convicted in December of conspiring with rival auction house Christie’s to fix fees charged to sellers, must now wait until April 22 for sentencing.

A CONMAN with an “appalling record”, who cheated antique dealers across the country has been jailed for six years at Salisbury Crown Court.

The Italian art market is in shock at the arrest of one of its major players for the sale of fake works of art and other crimes.

THE conventions of attribution for paintings are safe after a High Court judge ruled in favour of Mayfair art dealers Agnew’s in a £1.5m claim by a disgruntled customer.

In the second major Internet shill bidding case, three people have been charged with running a scheme that boosted the sale prices of hundreds of pieces of Lalique glass auctioned on eBay.

The conviction of New York antiquities dealer Frederick Schultz on charges of conspiracy and trading in stolen and smuggled artefacts has sent shockwaves through the trade.

THE judgment in the £1.5m claim against Mayfair art dealers Agnew’s could have important repercussions for the rules and conventions on attribution in UK art sales.

Sotheby’s have responded to the threat of legal action over alleged price fixing at UK auctions, playing down the claims of legal firm Class Law.

MAYFAIR art dealers Agnew’s are hotly contesting claims for a £1.5m refund over an Old Master which is at the centre of a dispute over who painted it.

A court decision to proceed with a case against a member of the trade is expected to deal a major blow to the United States’ antiquities business.

Alfred Taubman has tendered his widely expected appeal against his price-fixing conviction. The 76-year-old former chairman of Sotheby’s, who could face up to three years in jail when he comes up for sentencing on April 2, has objected to the use of a quotation from 18th century Scottish economist Adam Smith.