Front Page and News

The administrator BDO’s report into the collapse of Mossgreen has recommended that the Australian auction house’s former management be investigated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) over possible criminal activities.

Manchester United fans grumbling about the current style of play will be interested to learn that when Matt Busby joined as manager he was contractually obliged to play entertaining football.

The theft of a piece of pottery from an antiques centre in Hampshire has been met with responses from other shop and centre owners reporting similar occurrences.

Multi-estimate sums proved the norm among the star lots during London’s Islamic Week auction series.

Estimated at £10,000-15,000, a pair of James II silver candlesticks sold at £62,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at the Woolley & Wallis silver sale in Salisbury.

Antiques fair organiser IACF is offering a free pitch at one of its fairs to newcomers in return for agreeing to take part in filming a day in the life of the winner.

Auctioneers have told ATG the preparations they are making for sweeping new rules that will affect how they store and use personal data, due to be implemented in the EU on May 25.

Patricia Stevenson, the former Tatler magazine publishing director recently appointed as chief executive of dealer body LAPADA, has left the association.

The primary contents of North Mymms Park in Hertfordshire – including an important collection of European tapestries – provided Sworders with its best-ever sale last week.

Spink medals specialist David Erskine-Hill is leaving to take over as Lord Ashcroft’s medals curator on the retirement of Michael Naxton.

A New York law banning the sale of antique ivory has been challenged in court by two leading US antiques dealers associations.

The online art market’s growth is slowing but the use of mobile phones to buy art continues to increase.

Avon and Somerset police are appealing for information after a raid on the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath.

A hand-coloured design for Charles Voysey’s 'River Rug' surfaced at Lawrences of Crewkerne where it sold at £21,000 (plus premium).

A restituted portrait of a German electoral prince by Lucas Cranach the Elder, missing for nearly 80 years, has sold for $6.6m (£4.7m).

Kensington Church Street dealer Simon Spero is to sell his personal collection of English blue and white porcelain at a special exhibition next month.

Sotheby’s has made a u-turn on its pledge to scrap fees for purchasers at its online-only auctions.

BADA has clarified a key element of the government’s proposals for a near-complete ivory ban – the stipulation that all items qualifying for the ‘rarest and most important of its type’ and portrait miniature exemptions must be 100 years old.

Consignors to collapsed Australian auction house Mossgreen will not have to pay fees to have items returned, a Sydney court has ruled.

To address the increasing number of fakes, The Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) has launched a new digital ‘hallmark’ for editioned bronzes.