Law, crime and regulation

The UK trade have their man at the helm of CINOA, the international federation of antique dealers associations, for the first time in 13 years. Henry Neville, chairman of Mallett, was elected president at the annual general assembly in Dublin at the end of June.

Allen’s Authentication of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, by Anthony J. Allen, published by Allen’s Enterprises Ltd of Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand, www.allens.antiques.com and distributed in the UK by David Aldous-Cook: Reference Books on Antiques, Sutton, Surrey. Tel/fax: 0208 642 4842. ISBN 0473080451 £60hb

UK: THE trade have issued a warning to colleagues about a criminal gang operating in the Pimlico Road area who are known to target antique shops.

JUST as the Office of Fair Trading seemed to be making progress over the misleading marketing tactics of the Barcelona-based European City Guide, another similar operation has struck again.

A CAMPAIGN to change the law could force the closure of antiques fairs that are currently allowed to operate without planning permission. The Campaign for the Protection of Rural England (CPRE) is targeting its initiatives at car boot sales, motorsport meets and clay pigeon shooting, but the proposed change would embrace antiques events too.

FELLOWS and Sons, the Birmingham auctioneers, have refunded the buyers of three watercolours sold as the work of Prince Charles last week after the pictures were revealed as forgeries.

ALFRED Taubman, who has just announced an appeal against his collusion conviction, has started the ball rolling in his bid to sell his controlling stake in Sotheby’s.

THE head of one of the United States’ biggest industrial conglomerates has quit the company after being indicted on charges of sales tax evasion on paintings valued at $13m.

A VENDOR has been ordered to pay more than £10,000 legal costs after a picture he sold at auction proved not to be by the famous German artist to whom it was attributed.

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.

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.

At the eleventh hour, manuscripts purporting to be undiscovered music and poems by “America’s first native-born composer” were withdrawn from ,b>Freeman’s of Philadelphia May 16 books and manuscripts sale. Why? Evidence had surfaced that the archive was a sophisticated forgery.

Former Sotheby’s chief executive Diana ‘Dede’ Brooks was sentenced to six months ‘home detention’ last Monday after pleading guilty to fixing commissions for vendors with Christie’s between 1993 and 1999.

THE National Art Collections Fund has announced that it is tightening its rules on grant giving in a bid to prevent museums from inadvertently acquiring stolen art.

A FORMER Cambridge University student who plundered priceless historical book collections, stealing works valued at over £1m, has been jailed for four years.

The former chairmen of Sotheby’s and Christie’s faced different but equally humiliating fates last week following the auction house price-fixing scandal.

PRESSURE from the British Art Market Federation has persuaded the Government to relax Import VAT rules on art that are thought to have damaged legitimate trade.

ROBERT Lenkiewicz, one of Britain’s most controversial artists, has been burgled for the third time in five weeks in what is widely believed to be a ‘stolen to order’ theft.

CONSULTANTS at Christie’s have had it spelled out that they may not bid on lots when they have been privy to confidential information about them through their consultancy.