Law, crime and regulation

THE extraordinary saga over Partridge Fine Art has taken another twist with a legal row over claims of long-term systematic fraud and faking by the Bond Street dealership.

Auctioneer Nick Hall of Frank Marshall in Knutsford has issued a warning to dealers and auctioneers to be wary of bogus appointments after he was the victim of a vicious attack.

THE Royal Academy’s 2010 exhibition of treasures from the Liechtenstein Museum has been cancelled after the failure to resolve a long-running dispute over export licences.

THE V&A is to put on an exhibition of fakes curated by the Metropolitan Police Service's Art and Antiques Unit.

THE Hôtel Drouot was rocked to its foundations on December 2 after a massive police swoop ended with 12 people being taken into custody on suspicion of organised theft.

AUSTRALIA has reversed its previous government’s decision and introduced its own version of the Artist’s Resale Right.

THE Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA) and Oxfam have come to an agreement in their dispute over how the charity is affecting the secondhand book market.

UK museums whose own rules prevent them from returning Nazi-looted art to its rightful owners can now do so thanks to a new Act of Parliament.

CECIL Court, the pedestrian thoroughfare in the West End of London that is home to around 20 antiquarian book dealers, has become the focus of a wider political debate on business rates.

ROYAL Mail have lost another court case over their promise to cover losses under their special delivery services, and face further legal action. Yet they will still not change the terms and conditions that landed them in court.

AUCTIONEERS across the country have recently been the recipients of this potentially interesting document, a copy of The Order of Service for the Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, 30th January 1965.

AUCTIONEERS and trade associations sharing information on undesirable clients have to be careful that they are not breaking the law.

THE London art trade has welcomed the news that the Acquisitions, Export and Loans Unit’s (AELU) move to Birmingham has been delayed by three months.

MORE than a year after his county court victory against Royal Mail, coins and banknotes dealer Bruce Goulborn is taking them to court again.

PICTURED here is an artist’s impression of one of a cache of easily identifiable antiques stolen from the Spanish home of two retired British antiques dealers.

THE Geneva Freeport (Port Franc) have insisted that a recent change to Swiss customs laws will not affect the city’s reputation as the art warehouse of Europe.

ON September 17, eBay delivered a petition to the European parliament demanding a law change to stop luxury brands controlling where their goods are sold.

A THOMAS Tompion table clock was among the items stolen in a raid on a Cumbrian stately home on Saturday, September 19.

A long-running complaint brought against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts by the owner of a work twice denied by their authentication board has been granted class action status.

IN a fresh attempt to help the fight against the illicit art trade, the international police organisation Interpol has made its database of stolen art available to access online.