Law, crime and regulation

Gloucestershire auctioneers Dominic Winter are offering a reward for information leading to the return of 42 lots which were stolen in a smash-and-grab raid on their South Cerney premises.

Police are appealing for owners of various antiques to come forward. The items – two brass vases, a gold cup, a Chinese vase, a gold frame of a picture of fruit, a gold frame of a picture of flowers and a gold watch - relate to an on-going criminal investigation. The items are currently in the care of the police.

Peers in the House of Lords have made a last-ditch plea to the Government to scrap plans to review design rights under copyright law.

Police are appealing to antique collectors and dealers to contact them if they have come into contact with some valuable pieces which were stolen during a burglary in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire.

Antiques traders in the Oxfordshire area are being urged to be on their guard after a theft at Burford Antiques Centre.

A 66-year-old man who faked the signatures of Winston Churchill and other famous writers was sentenced to ten months in jail at Southampton Crown Court on December 21.

Two metal detectorists have been given suspended jail sentences in what is being hailed as a landmark case for the Portable Antiquities Scheme. It is the first time that such a ruling has been made since the scheme, which was piloted in the 1990s, came fully into force in 2003.

An expert on Ethiopian history is asking dealers and auctioneers to be on the look-out for rare items taken from a collection built up over most of his lifetime.

A fifth person has been charged in connection to the theft of 18 Chinese artefacts from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.

In ATG No 2062 dated 20 October 2012, we published an article entitled “Court Orders in Partridge Case reveal extent of Amor trio’s defeat”.

A Bill going through the UK parliament concerning design copyright threatens to create significant obstacles for those wishing to publish catalogues when staging exhibitions in commercial galleries or museums, says a leading academic.

‘The Return of Industrial Copyright?’, as Professor Bently’s paper is titled, sets out how, for decades, UK law has struggled to establish a balance between artistic copyright, which arises naturally, and design protection, which depends on registration.

The failure of wine investment funds to the tune of around £100m in the past four years has prompted the industry to set up a regulatory body to police such ventures.

Two men have been sentenced to a year in jail after admitting the theft of a sundial sculpture and bronze plinth from the Henry Moore Foundation.

A recent court case in New York has reinforced the importance of the often overlooked issue of artists’ moral rights.

Christie’s have won a High Court bid in Hong Kong to prevent another auction house benefiting from using a name that was sufficiently close to theirs to cause confusion.

A gang of robbers wearing ‘Halloween’ type masks and dressed all in black got more than they bargained for when staff at the well-known Hemswell Antiques Centre fought back to foil their raid.

A portable writing desk once owned by George Eliot is still missing after being stolen from Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery.

New rules could “virtually kill the movement of historic arms” between countries “stone dead” and have a drastic impact on military collections, according to the Museums Association (MA).

The High Court has issued an order freezing $15m of assets belonging to art collector Sheikh Saud Bin Mohammed Al-Thani.