Legal Cases

LAPADA have organised a free legal seminar for members in conjunction with the City law firm Withers to take place at 5.30pm on Wednesday, November 30 at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, 1 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1.

A French court has upheld the right of Paris auction firm Artcurial to use the name F. Tajan in their full title Artcurial Briest-Le Fur-Poulain-F. Tajan.

CLASS-action legal specialists Garden City Group (GCG) believe compensation cheques linked to the Sotheby’s/Christie’s collusion case will be sent out by August.

FOUR people linked to a £30m crime spree have denied selling hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of art and antiques.

MONTHS of lobbying and debate over droit de suite have now come to an an end. Parties on all sides have submitted their views to the Patent Office on how the art resale levy should be introduced into the UK and administered.

ONE of the most active scam guide firms, who con the antiques trade into taking out unwanted advertising, are on the march again, despite two court rulings against them.

An English judge has issued a stern warning to those who knowingly sell fake merchandise on eBay, handing a suspended prison sentence to a woman who sold a counterfeit collectable over the auction website for almost £1000.

London antique dealers Mallett’s of New Bond Street have been awarded €111,533 (£80,000) by the Irish High Court after suing an Irish dealer over a stolen bureau bookcase.

THE scientific tests stacked up. The catalogue description was fair. The buyer got what she paid for. But somehow Christie’s still managed to lose the High Court action brought by special client Taylor Lynne Thomson.

The beginning of the end is in sight to the lengthy compensation payment process in the ‘international’ tranche of the Sotheby’s-Christie’s price-fixing case.

The recent arrest of Sheikh Saud Al-Thani of Qatar appears to mark the end of a remarkable one-man, eight-year spending spree in the global art market.

CHRISTIE’S have launched their appeal against the High Court judgment in the Houghton urns case.

THE Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association has hit back at criticism levelled at the trade in a court case involving a serial thief of valuable maps.

THE Chicago Clearing Company, the US firm trading in auction house class action certificates, will be in London again this week.

THE Venini factory of Venice are to meet with their lawyers this week to discuss stepping up legal action against the family of Italian glass designer Fulvio Bianconi.

CHRISTIE’S have won leave to appeal against the High Court judgment that found them liable to pay damages to Taylor Lynne Thomson in the dispute over the £1.75m Houghton urns.

THE High Court has barred the former directors of now-bankrupt Interactive Collector Ltd from serving as directors of any British company for a period of seven years.

LAST week’s High Court judgement on the dispute over the gilded urns sold by Christie’s to Taylor Lynne Thomson should not prompt any dramatic changes to traditional cataloguing practice.

APPEAL Court judges have lifted the punishment given to a London dealer convicted of handling £1.5m worth of stolen silver after hearing how he had committed the crimes in order to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment.

FURTHER delays look likely before those promised redress following the Sotheby’s and Christie’s price fixing settlement receive compensation.