Legal Cases

UK: THE dealer charged in connection with the theft of the German Enigma cypher machine from Bletchley Park has been told he could go to jail after admitting receiving stolen goods.

A New York judge has set the date for the start of the trial of Sir Anthony Tennant and Alfred Taubman on price fixing charges.

FRANCE: FRENCH auction law reform should finally be introduced on October 1, although it could take months after that date before overseas auctioneers will be allowed to hold sales.

UK: Kent Trading Standards have confirmed that Barclaycard’s recently launched mobile credit and debit card machines can cut red tape for dealers under the imminent Kent Act.

NEW YORK-based British-born dealer Adam Williams is expected to appeal against his conviction in a French court for receiving stolen property.

ANYONE who thought that Yahoo’s decision to ban the promotion of Nazi memorabilia from its site would spell the end of legal wranglings over the issue were mistaken.

The trade will have to abide by the provisions of the Kent and Medway Bills as from December 1 this year. The announcement came from Kent Trading Standards on May 16, after the county council passed the resolution to introduce the Bill.

Internet auction giant EBay Inc. is to follow Yahoo in banning the sale of artefacts from Nazi Germany, in the hope of avoiding legal problems in other countries.

UK: Preliminary proceedings have begun at the High Court in a £100m claim by the estate of Francis Bacon against Marlborough Fine Art (London) and Lichtenstein-registered Marlborough International Fine Art. The estate claims the galleries were in breach of fiduciary duty and exerted “undue influence” in their dealings with the artist.

Some payouts expected by June. Buyers and sellers at Sotheby’s and Christie’s will now be able to sue the auctioneers through the United States courts over transactions that took place in London and elsewhere outside the US.

LAPADA, the Association of Art and Antique Dealers, have set out a three-point plan to help the trade meet the demands of the Kent Bill. They also plan to use the scheme to monitor possible legislation elsewhere across the country.

UK: BY the time you read this, the Kent and Medway Bills should have passed into law, with Royal Assent being given on Tuesday, April 10, although there will be a six-month delay until it can be enforced.

TWO men have been charged in the United States in a conspiracy to sell the 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleu, signed by Napoleon and stolen in 1988 from the French National Archives in Paris.

UK: CONFUSION reigned this week as to exactly what measures will be introduced with the adoption of the Kent County Council and Medway Council Bills.

FRANCE: Three French museums have become embroiled in legal controversy after harbouring works of art looted from their original owners during the Nazi occupation of France during the Second World War.

US: A LONG-running legal dispute has been sorted out in the United States. Unusually for such a contest I understand that everybody is happy.

FRANCE: A Paris court has refused the request of Christie’s owner François Pinault to revoke the sale of a statue of Pharaoh Sesostris III on the grounds that it was not authentic.

US: THE THREE year investigation into the price-fixing conspiracy between Sotheby’s and Christie’s entered its closing stages at a federal court in Manhattan last week as a federal judge formally accepted the criminal guilt of both auctioneers and no legal objections were raised to the terms of the $512m settlement in the civil lawsuit.

A LAWSUIT that threatened to deal a fatal blow to the heart of EBay’s trading status has been dismissed by a Californian court

UK: ARTS Minister Alan Howarth has announced that the Government will pay £125,000 compensation to a family forced to sell a painting as they fled the Nazis.