Law, crime and regulation

Pictures by contemporary artists Howard Hodgkin, Sir Peter Blake and Gilbert & George and sculptures by William Turnbull have been stolen from a home in Leicestershire.

The government is hoping to find a buyer for four works - three rugs and a painted screen - by Francis Bacon (1909-92) in the hope of keeping them in the country.

A sketch by Dutch artist Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533) has been temporarily blocked from export in the hope of finding a UK buyer.

The notebooks of Charles Darwin’s mentor, the Scottish geologist Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875), have been temporarily blocked from export in the hope of finding a UK buyer.

A police appeal has been launched for the recovery of two Frank Auerbach (b.1931) paintings as part of a fraud investigation.

A 16th century marquetry casket long in the collection of Scotland’s Newbattle Abbey has been placed under export bar in a bid to keep it in the country.

Six-hundred rare books, manuscripts and prints which were lost or stolen from a German library during the Second World War have been returned after they were consigned to Sotheby’s.

A rare 350-year-old cabinet made by Baroque craftsman Giacomo Herman (1615-85) has been temporarily barred from export by the UK government in the hope it will be bought by a buyer in the UK.

A prolific pensioner art thief has been sentenced to two years in jail. Police are now calling for help to locate a painting that he stole from a private members’ club in London.

Art shippers have welcomed European Union laws that create a grace period for UK hauliers until the end of 2019.

Old Master picture dealer Mark Weiss has agreed an out-of-court settlement with Sotheby’s in the case of a $10m painting the auction house believed to be a forgery.

A Pablo Picasso painting missing for nearly 20 years has been recovered by the so-called real-life ‘Indiana Jones’ of the art world.

The Met Police’s Flying Squad are appealing for help to find a gang of criminals who reportedly tunnelled into jewellery dealer George Attenborough & Son on Fleet Street.

The cost to firms of cyber fraudsters' invoice scams reached nearly £100m in 2018 and small businesses, such as those in the art and antiques trade, remain vulnerable, according to the latest report.

Members of the European Parliament on a special committee for financial crime and tax evasion have warned of the art market potentially being used as “a suitable vehicle for illegal activity”, according to a report.

A cathedral in Germany has returned a painting that was seized by the Nazis in 1941 to the heirs of its original Jewish owners. The work had entered the collection of Adolf Hitler’s photographer Heinrich Hoffmann and was found among the numerous works he kept in a castle in Bavaria at the end of the Second World War.

A pair of ‘champagne’ lamps designed by surrealist artist Salvador Dalí has been bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum and will be reunited with Dalí’s Mae West Lips sofa.