News

UK: THE panel looking into whether UK collections and institutions should return Nazi looted art to its original owners or compensate them has unveiled the criteria and procedures which will determine its judgements.

UK: GAVELNET.COM, the San Francisco-based Internet auction specialists have denied claims that they are winding up their UK operation.

FRANCE: FOLLOWING the recent agreement on a definitive text by a bicameral parliamentary commission, France’s auction reform was adopted by the Assemblée Nationale on May 23 and is slated for its final reading in the Senate on June 27.

UK: The Passage through parliament of the Kent County Council and Medway Bills – designed to regulate the trade in all forms of second-hand goods in the county – has been held up until the autumn.

Memories of high royal days on the Cowes riviera were recalled on the Isle of Wight when a relatively plain Victorian mahogany dressing table surfaced at Shanklin Auction Rooms on June 6.

UK: THE MINISTER for the Arts, Alan Howarth, made it clear last week that he was not going to be rushed into further regulating the trade in art and antiquities.

Following the decision earlier this year to reform the structure of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors and to merge with the ISVA, the RICS will split into 16 faculties from the beginning of 2001.