Law, crime and regulation

Only 53 individuals and organisations submitted evidence for the impact study on the Artist’s Resale Right, the Intellectual Property Office has revealed as it published results last week.

The boss of Cameo Fine Art Auctioneers near Reading lived the high life, fleecing customers to line his pockets, a jury has heard.

A new report on the British art market shows the United States and China pulling away from the UK – the world’s third biggest player – as global business expands.

Antiques Trade Gazette Editor Ivan Macquisten explains why leading dealers and auctioneers need to rethink their strategy if they want to get public opinion on their side

Embroiled in the debate regarding the rights and wrongs of selling elephant ivory works of art, Chiswick Auctions have become the first UK saleroom to stop almost all sales of ivory – regardless of age.

The opening salvos have been fired in the court case centred on the version of Caravaggio’s ‘The Card Sharps’ which sold at Sotheby’s in 2006.

Magistrates have fined a West London auction house £3200 for breaching the Control of Trade in Endangered Species (Enforcement) (CITES) Regulations 1997.

Lyon & Turnbull have been forced to postpone the sale of the contents of Bantry House, County Cork because of delays in obtaining a licence from the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA) to hold the sale on the premises. The sale was scheduled to take place on October 21.

An appeal for a shorter sentence launched by a conman who scammed dealers at fairs across the country has been dismissed.

An antiques dealer who forged signatures of famous people such as Winston Churchill and Robert Louis Stevenson has been told he will have to sell his house to pay back more than £33,000 he took in through the scam.

This sixth issue Elizabeth I sovereign (1584-1586) was among seven English 16th and 17th century gold coins stolen from a dealer’s home in Norfolk in August.

A West London auction house is facing court, charged with the sale of a modern elephant ivory carving under the Control of Trade in Endangered Species (Enforcement) (CITES) Regulations 1997.

Stronger sanctions against museums that sell off items from their collections donated by the public are being considered.

If Scotland votes for independence on September 18, how might this affect the ownership of art North and South of the Border?

Details have emerged of a theft of a significant collection of British pocket watches from a property in London earlier this year.

Auction houses who refund VAT on the buyer’s premium to overseas purchasers without ensuring that the correct paperwork is in place could find themselves liable for the tax themselves.

The Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office want to help more UK provincial auctioneers spot fakes by inviting them to their Fakes and Forgeries seminars at Goldsmiths’ Hall in London.

In the wake of calls for the destruction of antique ivory, The Metropolitan Police Wildlife Crime Unit is asking Londoners to bring in ‘family heirlooms’ made from elephant ivory and other endangered species.

Book dealers have been urged to be on the lookout after a second edition of the King James Bible from 1614 was stolen from a Berkshire church.

Gibraltar expects to become a new European Union tax haven for the trade in art by scrapping import and export duties on works from July 1.