Law, crime and regulation

DETECTIVE work by a Cornish auctioneer has led to a jail sentence for a 40-year-old former art teacher who defrauded galleries and members of the public by selling fakes.

FOURTEEN antiques of ‘significant, cultural and historic value’ have been recovered and two men arrested in connection with three high-profile country house thefts in 2009.

FOUR people have gone on trial in Germany on charges linked to a multi-million pound art fraud exposed as a result of scientific testing on paint.

MORE details have come to light regarding the break-in at Long Street Antiques Centre in Tetbury during the early hours of Friday, August 26.

FOLLOWING the recent report about cheque fraud in July on Portobello Road and Westbourne Grove, additional incidents have emerged of suspected fraud around London using cheques under the account name GC Commodity’s (sic).

THE Westport Police Department is investigating the theft of two Chinese Louhan head sculptures, recently stolen from a private collection in Westport, Connecticut.

As the spectre of droit de suite for artists’ heirs looms large over the British art market, the main copyright and licensing collecting agency in the United States is pushing to see the debate over artists’ resale rights revived on Capitol Hill.

DURING the early hours of Tuesday, August 16, the Antique Textiles Company in Hampstead was vandalised – the victim of what is thought to be a revenge attack.

TWO men have been charged with handling stolen goods following the recovery of a number of pictures from the Halewood area of Liverpool.

THE US Appeals Court has upheld the New York District Court ruling in Christie’s favour in the dispute over a long-lost work thought to be by Leonardo da Vinci.

ENCOURAGING words from Downing Street and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt in the past year gave us hope that finally something would be done about the impending threat to the British art market of the extension of the Artists’ Resale Right to the estates of artists who have been dead for less than 70 years.

EBAY users are being warned of a new scam that targets sellers who allow buyers to collect items in person.

THEFTS of old rhino horn trophies, wanted for their value in Chinese medicine, are continuing.

THE Society of London Art Dealers (SLAD) have reinforced the claim by the British Antique Dealers Association that the extension of the Artist’s Resale Right next year will have a significant effect on business.

A SCULPTURE has been returned to its former home more than 70 years after it was looted during the Blitz from a bombed London church.

INDIVIDUALS buying and selling goods over the internet are to be targeted in the latest crackdown by the taxman.

AUCTIONEERS in the south east of England are advised to exercise particular vigilance after a spate of saleroom break-ins.

HASLEMERE in Surrey has fallen victim to a gang targeting silver for melt, two weeks after thieves stole a rhino head from the town’s museum.

THIS bronze Zinfandel by equestrian sculptor Adrian Jones (1845-1938) was stolen earlier this month from a private house in Surrey.

THE Portable Antiquities Scheme has recorded a 36 per cent increase in finds since improving its database in 2010 and making it easier to register discoveries.