News

Tension in the East and distrust in the West have combined to force up gold prices.The steady increase in the value of gold over the past two weeks is due to “a combination of factors,” according to jeweller and precious metals dealer Michael Bloomstein.

Mention rare animals to a Lowestoft resident and you are likely to be directed to Suffolk’s only wildlife park on the outskirts of town, where African lions and ring-tailed lemurs roam the saltmarshes.

After Modern art specialist Francis Briest and Claude Aguttes of suburban Neuilly, Hervé Poulain and Rémy Le Fur have become the latest auctioneers to join Artcurial.

Paul Sumner, managing director of Sotheby’s Olympia, has resigned from the company and is returning to Australia where he plans to set up his own business.

In a second attempt to have his price-fixing conviction overturned, former Sotheby’s auction house chairman A. Alfred Taubman has asked an appeals court to reconsider his case, citing errors by the trial judge. “This was not a fair fight,” lawyers for the Bloomfield Hills multimillionaire said when filing the 95-page appeal document on May 21.

THE spectre of misleading fair guides landing dealers with bills for hundreds of pounds for unwanted advertising has risen yet again.

AN ex-Cambridge University student, jailed for four years for plundering priceless historical book collections, may face a stiffer sentence unless he repays hundreds of thousands of pounds.