Law, crime and regulation

POLICE are warning the trade to be on the alert after a gang stole £8000 worth of jewellery from Banbury Antique Centre on April 19.

THE British Numismatic Trade Association have just issued a notice to their members about a new European Union import tax. As from March 1 an ad valorem duty has been imposed on any United States Mint modern products imported into the European Union under the following codes – 71189000 and 71181010.

DEALERS at the Saffron Walden Antiques Centre have offered a reward of up to £10,000 for information leading to the return of their stock and the capture of the burglars who stole it.

THE importance of exercising due diligence has been driven home in the most painful way for a dealer, whose oversight has cost them £12,000.

DEALERS are advised to check their vehicles before leaving showground fairs following a sophisticated robbery attempt at Sunbury Antiques Market.

ON Friday April 2, this distinctive silver and 18 carat rose gold Boucheron lady’s minaudière, pictured right, 5 1/4in (13.5cm) across, was stolen from the Pullman Gallery at 14 King Street in St James’s.

ON Thursday March 18 thieves broke into the Oxfordshire home of ex-jockey and racehorse trainer Stan Mellor and stole silver and works of art.

THE new money-laundering laws appear inadvertently to have created a problem for the coin trade.

A HIGH Court judge has retired to consider his ruling in a case that could revolutionise the terms under which auctioneers do business.

AVON and Somerset Police are currently investigating a series of cheque deceptions committed against antique shops and dealers throughout the UK and Europe over the last two years.

PARIS auctioneer Jean-Claude Binoche has been given an eight-month suspended jail sentence, and fined €100,000, after a Paris court found him guilty of fraud.

FAMILIES with valuable homes and art collections may face extreme hardship and even bankruptcy after the Chancellor tore up the rule book on inheritance in the Budget.

VENDORS wishing to protect their interests when an auction house becomes insolvent should use firms where at least one of the partners or directors is a member of the RICS.

ORGANISERS Brian and Anna Haughton have cancelled this summer’s London Asian Art Fair citing trade uncertainties over The Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act as the reason.

POLICE are warning that a thief, fitting the description of a woman who stole from London antiques shops in January, has struck again.

THE British Antique Dealers’ Association believe campaigners are wrong to call for only independent registered experts to be allowed to date ivory objects. The move would drive trade underground they say.

CAMPAIGNERS against the illegal trade in ivory want to end the exisiting policy which allows any antique dealer to appraise the age of ivory in works of art.

INITIAL arguments in the £1.75m High Court dispute between Christie’s and Taylor Lynne Thomson over a pair of porphyry urns indicate that both parties intend to fight their corner vigorously.

TAXES lost to the US government during the American side of the Sotheby’s/Christie’s price-fixing settlement can be retrieved by the British trade say the US company trading in auction house class action certificates.

The antiques trade are being alerted to a new online fraud after at least three dealers were targeted last week. Overpayment fraud, as it is known, is the latest in a series of Internet-based payment frauds aimed at retailers with a website presence.