Law, crime and regulation

A legal claim lodged against Christie’s in New York has highlighted some of the practices relating to private sales that top-end auctioneers make behind closed doors.

Art market trade bodies are commissioning a survey to assess the potential financial impact on buyers, sellers and collectors of antique ivory of a law that will usher in a near-total ban on the UK ivory trade.

Supreme Court in Paris rules that auction house can now charge buyers rather than sellers for artist levy.

The owner of a group of medals stolen from a car in south London is calling on the trade to help her locate them.

The Queen has formally agreed to make the ivory bill, which proposes a near-total ban on the trade in ivory, into an Act of Parliament.

A sample of vintage bottles of Scotch whisky tested in a Scottish laboratory has been found to be fake.

The government is launching a consultation on the future of the export system for art, antiques and antiquities, with the aim of forcing owners to ‘honour their commitment’ to sell when a matching offer is made from a UK buyer.

The ivory bill, which proposes a near-total ban on the trade in ivory, has passed its final stage in the House of Commons and is awaiting Royal Assent before it can become law next year.

An exceptionally rare Western Zhou bronze, taken when the Summer Palace was sacked by British troops in 1860, has been returned to China.

Tapestry and textiles specialist Franses won a landmark Supreme Court case against its landlord the Cavendish Hotel, allowing it to continue to operate from the London gallery that has been its home for more than 25 years.

The UK government has issued an export bar for JMW Turner’s ‘Walton Bridges’, valued at £3.4m.

The police and the owners of a Cartier jewel-encrusted tiara are appealing for help to track it down after it was stolen from The Welbeck Estate in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.

It has been reported that a man and two accomplices walked into auction house Dorotheum in Vienna earlier this week and walked out with a Renoir that was due to be auctioned.