Legal Cases

Campaigners against the sale of 24 items of Chinese ceramics from Croydon council’s Riesco Collection were in a race against time to raise money for their judicial review.

Officers carrying out a fraud investigation at Stuart Porter Antiques in Stamford are asking any small dealers who rented space at the premises to contact them.

The British Numismatic Trade Association is in mourning after member Giuseppe Miceli was killed at his home in Northampton.

The British government has placed a temporary export bar on a rare piece of jewellery that belonged to Jane Austen.

A new decree under French law has banned the mailing of banknotes, coins, jewellery and precious metals using the standard French postal system.

Henri Gros, partner in the Paris auctioneers Gros & Delettrez, has been suspended for two months for accepting €200,000 in small denomination notes from a Chinese buyer after the Paul-Louis Weiller sale in April 2011.

A demand from the National Archives for lots to be withdrawn from auction at Tennants of Leyburn could have wider implications for the trade in historical documents.

Dealers in New York can no longer use works consigned to them for sale by artists – or monies raised from their sale, beyond their own commissions – as debt collateral.

Art dealer Hillel ‘Helly’ Nahmad, the high-profile owner of the Helly Nahmad Gallery in New York, has been named on a list of people charged with running an illegal gambling business.

New York’s highest court has decided to review a recent ruling that says salerooms in the state must reveal consignors’ names to buyers.

Peers in the House of Lords have made a last-ditch plea to the Government to scrap plans to review design rights under copyright law.

A 66-year-old man who faked the signatures of Winston Churchill and other famous writers was sentenced to ten months in jail at Southampton Crown Court on December 21.

Two metal detectorists have been given suspended jail sentences in what is being hailed as a landmark case for the Portable Antiquities Scheme. It is the first time that such a ruling has been made since the scheme, which was piloted in the 1990s, came fully into force in 2003.

In ATG No 2062 dated 20 October 2012, we published an article entitled “Court Orders in Partridge Case reveal extent of Amor trio’s defeat”.

Two men have been sentenced to a year in jail after admitting the theft of a sundial sculpture and bronze plinth from the Henry Moore Foundation.

A recent court case in New York has reinforced the importance of the often overlooked issue of artists’ moral rights.

Christie’s have won a High Court bid in Hong Kong to prevent another auction house benefiting from using a name that was sufficiently close to theirs to cause confusion.

The High Court has issued an order freezing $15m of assets belonging to art collector Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Al-Thani.

The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association is taking the fight to forgers after one of its members was instrumental in bringing serial forger Allan Formhals to justice.

The High Court has reserved judgment on whether to continue freezing the assets of a Qatari sheikh accused of being a serial defaulter on debts run up at auction.