Law, crime and regulation

FRANCE: FRENCH auction law reform should finally be introduced on October 1, although it could take months after that date before overseas auctioneers will be allowed to hold sales.

QXL have temporarily suspended Hugh Scully’s antiques valuation site while they conduct a summer review of their services.

The long debate over droit de suite, the artists resale levy, is over after the European Union finally ratified the measure in Brussels last week.

UK: Kent Trading Standards have confirmed that Barclaycard’s recently launched mobile credit and debit card machines can cut red tape for dealers under the imminent Kent Act.

NEW YORK-based British-born dealer Adam Williams is expected to appeal against his conviction in a French court for receiving stolen property.

UK: A SOLICITOR’S clerk has been banned from his profession after a tribunal heard how he arranged the theft of valuable works of art to order.

WILLIAM Blake’s painting God Blessing the Seventh Day is one of a number of art treasures placed under a temporary export ban by Arts Minister Tessa Blackstone.

USA: THE United States government is taking serious steps to beat Internet fraud and is consulting leading e-commerce figures on how to go about it.

VANDALS are being blamed for a fire that threatened to engulf Eastbourne Auction Rooms last week.

ANYONE who thought that Yahoo’s decision to ban the promotion of Nazi memorabilia from its site would spell the end of legal wranglings over the issue were mistaken.

SIX years after a gang stole part of the Luton Hoo Fabergé collection, a new police database succeeded in trapping one of the thieves.

PRIME Minister Tony Blair has taken the unusual step of announcing that the UK government will vote against droit de suite, the artists resale levy, when the European Union puts it to the final vote.

A number of dealers have contacted the Antiques Trade Gazette concerning a couple passing false cheques in antique shops across Dorset, Devon, Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

UK: THE trial of Dennis Yates, the Nottingham-based radio specialist accused of blackmail and receiving stolen goods after an Enigma code machine was stolen from Bletchley Park Museum, may be delayed by a defence plea to move the venue.

FORMER Sotheby’s chief executive Diana D. Brooks will now be sentenced on November 19 for her part in the auction house price fixing scandal.

The trade will have to abide by the provisions of the Kent and Medway Bills as from December 1 this year. The announcement came from Kent Trading Standards on May 16, after the county council passed the resolution to introduce the Bill.

Internet auction giant EBay Inc. is to follow Yahoo in banning the sale of artefacts from Nazi Germany, in the hope of avoiding legal problems in other countries.

UK: Preliminary proceedings have begun at the High Court in a £100m claim by the estate of Francis Bacon against Marlborough Fine Art (London) and Lichtenstein-registered Marlborough International Fine Art. The estate claims the galleries were in breach of fiduciary duty and exerted “undue influence” in their dealings with the artist.

LAPADA, the Association of Art and Antique Dealers, have set out a three-point plan to help the trade meet the demands of the Kent Bill. They also plan to use the scheme to monitor possible legislation elsewhere across the country.

Some payouts expected by June. Buyers and sellers at Sotheby’s and Christie’s will now be able to sue the auctioneers through the United States courts over transactions that took place in London and elsewhere outside the US.