Law, crime and regulation

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.

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.

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.

A DOSSIER of evidence put together by the Antiques Trade Gazette over several years of investigation has led to the directors of an Essex freight firm being banned from running limited companies.

A £70,000 REWARD is being offered after five paintings worth more than £1.7m were stolen from an antiques fair in Sweden.

THE conventions of attribution for paintings are safe after a High Court judge ruled in favour of Mayfair art dealers Agnew’s in a £1.5m claim by a disgruntled customer.

THE new survey of the European art market commissioned by The European Fine Art Federation makes for grim reading.

In the second major Internet shill bidding case, three people have been charged with running a scheme that boosted the sale prices of hundreds of pieces of Lalique glass auctioned on eBay.

Echoes of the Kent County Council Bill can be discerned in changes announced to the VAT secondhand margin scheme (notice 718). Dealers who use a system called Global Accounting to calculate VAT on profit margins will have to keep a record of the names and addresses of sellers on purchase invoices – a main requirement of the Kent Bill – when the changes come into force on July 31 this year.

The second Detling fair of the year (February 23-24) indicates that the trade is not being put off by the Kent Act.

POLICE are casting their net farther afield in the hope of recapturing a missing mermaid, and the thieves who stole her.

The conviction of New York antiquities dealer Frederick Schultz on charges of conspiracy and trading in stolen and smuggled artefacts has sent shockwaves through the trade.

Sotheby’s have responded to the threat of legal action over alleged price fixing at UK auctions, playing down the claims of legal firm Class Law.

THE judgment in the £1.5m claim against Mayfair art dealers Agnew’s could have important repercussions for the rules and conventions on attribution in UK art sales.