Law, crime and regulation

FRANCE'S national auction watchdog, the Conseil des Ventes, has banned the firm Rey & Associés from all auction activity, for repeatedly staging sales without adequate insurance cover.

POLICE investigating a series of gate thefts that have occurred in North Wales believe that they were stolen in order to sell as antiques.

LAST week’s High Court judgement on the dispute over the gilded urns sold by Christie’s to Taylor Lynne Thomson should not prompt any dramatic changes to traditional cataloguing practice.

APPEAL Court judges have lifted the punishment given to a London dealer convicted of handling £1.5m worth of stolen silver after hearing how he had committed the crimes in order to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment.

THE gang targeting antiques centres in the south-midlands appear to have struck again, this time walking away with £4000 worth of carriage clocks.

FURTHER delays look likely before those promised redress following the Sotheby’s and Christie’s price fixing settlement receive compensation.

Pictured right is one of two major pieces of Georg Jensen silver stolen in a raid on Denmark’s National Art Gallery in the early hours of May 2. The thieves involved got away with an estimated £70,000 worth of silver that formed part of an exhibition featuring the work of the celebrated Danish silversmith.

THE jewellery dealer targeted by a gang at Sandown Park Fair on April 27 has told the Antiques Trade Gazette it was the second attack on him in as little as two weeks.

TWO specialist services in the world of tracking stolen art have joined forces to launch a new recovery service.

POLICE are warning the trade to be on the alert after a gang stole £8000 worth of jewellery from Banbury Antique Centre on April 19.

A SUBSTANTIAL reward is being offered after thieves smashed a dealer’s car window and made off with a large amount of jewellery at Sandown Park Fair on April 27.

THE British Numismatic Trade Association have just issued a notice to their members about a new European Union import tax. As from March 1 an ad valorem duty has been imposed on any United States Mint modern products imported into the European Union under the following codes – 71189000 and 71181010.

DEALERS at the Saffron Walden Antiques Centre have offered a reward of up to £10,000 for information leading to the return of their stock and the capture of the burglars who stole it.

THE importance of exercising due diligence has been driven home in the most painful way for a dealer, whose oversight has cost them £12,000.

ON Friday April 2, this distinctive silver and 18 carat rose gold Boucheron lady’s minaudière, pictured right, 5 1/4in (13.5cm) across, was stolen from the Pullman Gallery at 14 King Street in St James’s.

DEALERS are advised to check their vehicles before leaving showground fairs following a sophisticated robbery attempt at Sunbury Antiques Market.

ON Thursday March 18 thieves broke into the Oxfordshire home of ex-jockey and racehorse trainer Stan Mellor and stole silver and works of art.

THE new money-laundering laws appear inadvertently to have created a problem for the coin trade.

A HIGH Court judge has retired to consider his ruling in a case that could revolutionise the terms under which auctioneers do business.

AVON and Somerset Police are currently investigating a series of cheque deceptions committed against antique shops and dealers throughout the UK and Europe over the last two years.