Law, crime and regulation

THE head of one of the United States’ biggest industrial conglomerates has quit the company after being indicted on charges of sales tax evasion on paintings valued at $13m.

A VENDOR has been ordered to pay more than £10,000 legal costs after a picture he sold at auction proved not to be by the famous German artist to whom it was attributed.

ALFRED Taubman, who has just announced an appeal against his collusion conviction, has started the ball rolling in his bid to sell his controlling stake in Sotheby’s.

In a second attempt to have his price-fixing conviction overturned, former Sotheby’s auction house chairman A. Alfred Taubman has asked an appeals court to reconsider his case, citing errors by the trial judge. “This was not a fair fight,” lawyers for the Bloomfield Hills multimillionaire said when filing the 95-page appeal document on May 21.

THE spectre of misleading fair guides landing dealers with bills for hundreds of pounds for unwanted advertising has risen yet again.

AN ex-Cambridge University student, jailed for four years for plundering priceless historical book collections, may face a stiffer sentence unless he repays hundreds of thousands of pounds.

At the eleventh hour, manuscripts purporting to be undiscovered music and poems by “America’s first native-born composer” were withdrawn from ,b>Freeman’s of Philadelphia May 16 books and manuscripts sale. Why? Evidence had surfaced that the archive was a sophisticated forgery.

Former Sotheby’s chief executive Diana ‘Dede’ Brooks was sentenced to six months ‘home detention’ last Monday after pleading guilty to fixing commissions for vendors with Christie’s between 1993 and 1999.

THE National Art Collections Fund has announced that it is tightening its rules on grant giving in a bid to prevent museums from inadvertently acquiring stolen art.

A FORMER Cambridge University student who plundered priceless historical book collections, stealing works valued at over £1m, has been jailed for four years.

ROBERT Lenkiewicz, one of Britain’s most controversial artists, has been burgled for the third time in five weeks in what is widely believed to be a ‘stolen to order’ theft.

The former chairmen of Sotheby’s and Christie’s faced different but equally humiliating fates last week following the auction house price-fixing scandal.

PRESSURE from the British Art Market Federation has persuaded the Government to relax Import VAT rules on art that are thought to have damaged legitimate trade.

CONSULTANTS at Christie’s have had it spelled out that they may not bid on lots when they have been privy to confidential information about them through their consultancy.

“Thank goodness he didn’t put up VAT”, said one dealer in response to Gordon Brown’s budget – the worst fears of the trade did not come true last week.

The European Commission announced last week that they intend to take action against Sotheby’s and Christie’s regarding a whole range of anti-competitive practices.

LONDON: THE trade are being warned about credit card cloning after several incidents in London in the past few months. In mid-January, a King’s Road gallery sold a French 19th Century bronze figure to a customer, and was paid with a credit card which, though authorised at the time, now appears to have been fraudulent.

SOTHEBY’S former chairman, A. Alfred Taubman, convicted in December of conspiring with rival auction house Christie’s to fix fees charged to sellers, must now wait until April 22 for sentencing.

A CONMAN with an “appalling record”, who cheated antique dealers across the country has been jailed for six years at Salisbury Crown Court.

The Italian art market is in shock at the arrest of one of its major players for the sale of fake works of art and other crimes.