Law, crime and regulation

THE British art trade has paid out over £1m since Droit de Suite came into force at the start of the year. Despite some initial bureaucratic difficulties, the Artists’ Resale Right appears to have been implemented more smoothly in Britain than in other European countries.

JUST in time for Christmas – the perfect stocking filler for every art dealer, collector and art market professional.

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE police are planning to return £24,000 worth of antiques at the Newark fair this Friday to dealers who accepted cheques from a fraudster.

Feeding frenzy sets new record as bidders get their fill despite absence of Lloyd Webber Picasso

Trading standards officers say close to 100 unpaid consignors have been unable to contact Gadsbys Auctioneers and Valuers, of Tuxford Road, Leicester after the company abruptly stopped trading two months ago.

The 2001 Irish heritage laws are again being tested after a local council announced its intent to stop the sale of an 18th century fireplace on the grounds that – although not fitted in the property until the early 1970s – it is now an essential feature of the house.

SCOTLAND Yard’s Art and Antiques Unit are staging an exhibition at the V&A to raise awareness among museums, galleries and art dealers of the problem of fakes in London.

DEALERS from all over Europe have launched a campaign to get rid of the resale right enjoyed by the heirs of dead artists.

Stolen art and antiques valued at tens of millions remain at large despite the arrests of 14 people in connection with a string of burglaries at English stately homes. Police have asked the antiques trade to remain vigilant.

The reform of auction law forced itself to the top of the agenda when delegates from SYMEV, France’s national auctioneers association, sat down at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris on October 3 for their annual conference.

Luxury goods firm LVMH, owners of Louis Vuitton and Dior, have filed a lawsuit against eBay contending that most of the products on the site purporting to carry their top brands are fakes.

NEW guidelines limiting the types of print that can attract the Artist’s Resale Right have come into force. They restrict qualifying works to those where the artist has been directly involved in preparing the matrix – the inked surface used in printing.

THE dealer who originally reported the John Anster Fitzgerald (1826-1906) fakes to the police has defended the trade and issued a stark warning to art forgers.

CHRISTIE’S are hoping to generate up to $140m for the four remaining works by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) that were part of the high-profile Bloch-Bauer restitution case.

POLICE have confirmed they are committed to tracing over 40 rare books stolen from Manchester’s Central Library after a senior judge demanded that greater efforts be made to recover them.

THE Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS) has made its second Droit de Suite pay-out to artists. It means that the collecting agency has now distributed over £65,000 since the resale levy was implemented in February. More than 140 artists have now received payments from DACS.

Assay Office London will hold their next Fakes and Forgeries seminar at Goldsmiths’ Hall on Wednesday, January 24.

THIEVES have raided a fair in Belgium and stolen antique jewellery from one of Europe's leading dealers in period jewellery.

THE Edvard Munch paintings The Scream and the Madonna have been recovered by Norwegian police. They were stolen from an Oslo museum two years ago.

THE UK's Information Commissioner is to investigate whether eBay are in breach of the Data Protection Act by obstructing the removal of customers' personal details from their website.