Law, crime and regulation

A MANUSCRIPTS dealer from Cheltenham has uncovered a major theft of letters from an American university. The case is now being investigated by the FBI.

SUSSEX police want to speak to the man, pictured here, in connection with two thefts at Gorringes auction house in Lewes.

THE Northumberland auctioneer Jim Railton who was charged with offering and advertising 54 wild birds’ eggs for sale, has now been fined £1000 plus costs at Alnwick Magistrates Court.

DISGRACED New York dealer Lawrence Salander, erstwhile co-owner of Manhattan’s Salander-O’Reilly Gallery, has admitted to orchestrating a $120m art fraud.

A VERY Italian tale involving an important collection of papers that once belonged to the ‘father of art history’, Giorgio Vasari, took a new twist last month when a court injunction halted its sale by auction at the eleventh hour.

FOLLOWING the confidential settlement made between The Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation and the heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Picasso’s 1903 portrait of his friend Angel Fernandez de Soto will be offered for sale at Christie’s in London on June 23 with an estimate of £30-40m.

ONE of the North East’s best-known auctioneers faces a substantial fine and a possible prison sentence after being charged over the sale of an Edwardian collection of birds’ eggs.

Bearnes, Hampton & Littlewood (BHL) are not seeking to recover a cache of gold and jewellery accidentally sold as part of a lot in their 2006 sale of Agatha Christie effects.

Culture minister Margaret Hodge has placed a temporary export ban on Raphael's Head of a Muse after ruling that an attempt should be made to keep the £26m drawing in the UK.

NEW rules this summer mean that every work of art transported to and from the United States by a commercial passenger airliner must be screened individually by US airport security.

AS court proceedings draw closer, Christie’s have upped their long-running damages claim against Artprice from 2m euros to a hefty 63m euros. The auction house originally filed the suit against the French art database in 2008, saying that the reproduction of e-catalogues on their website constitutes copyright and trademark infringement.

MORE transparency and regulation at New York auctions is promised if a bill recently introduced in the state legislature is passed.

A DEALER who says his career has been ruined by trumped-up charges in the Greek courts has been arrested again – even though he is currently appealing against the conviction and three-year jail sentence.

EBAY’s legal fortunes continue to seesaw, with a Paris court ordering them to pay 230,000 euros to Louis Vuitton Malletier in costs and damages.

A REWARD of £50,000 is being offered in the bid to recover more than £1m worth of art stolen in a violent theft from a private collector in Bruton, Somerset.

Faced with the biggest crisis in its history, the Hôtel Drouot, the central Paris auction venue, has announced sweeping changes to how it is run.

SEVERAL dealers at Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park on Tuesday, January 26, were duped by a woman using a stolen chequebook.

A MAN arrested in connection with passing fraudulent cheques to London dealers has appeared in court.

POLICE are in the process of returning £500,000 worth of antiques after a serial conwoman received a confiscation order earlier this month.

POLICE in North Yorkshire are seeking information following the theft in early January of a 17th century statue from St Andrew's Church, Newton Kyme, Tadcaster.