Law, crime and regulation

FRANCE: A French judge ruled on November 20 that Yahoo must take steps to prevent French Web-browsers from accessing sales of Nazi memorabilia on their American auction site.

UK: FOUR weeks of expert evidence and deliberation has ended with the Parliamentary Select Committee needing the chairman’s casting vote to keep the Kent Bill from being thrown out.

FRANCE: POLICE today appealed for help in tracing up to 100 bronzes and other antiques which were stolen in a £1m burglary at a Paris Gallery in June 1998.

UK: Doubt still hangs over the future of goods consigned to troubled west London auctioneers Academy of Ealing.

A trio of international experts appointed by a Paris court have concluded that it may be technically possible to prevent Web browsers from consulting sites based in another country, but that the method envisaged is not fully reliable.

UK: ANTIQUES Portfolio, the dotcom company which had tied in its future with the now defunct Gavelnet, has itself filed for insolvency

EXPERT evidence on the Kent County Council Bill will go into select committee session for an unexpected third week on Tuesday, November 7 as almost every clause in the proposed Bill is closely examined.

FRANCE: A Paris court has granted a temporary injunction placing a Cézanne painting currently on show at a city museum under legal supervision pending an inquiry into its ownership.

ANTHONY Browne, chairman of the British Art Federation, has just led a delegation of art dealers to Strasbourg to lobby the European Parliament further on the artists’ resale levy, droit de suite.

SIX claimants have refiled a case against online sales giant EBay that, if successful, could deal a fatal blow to the company’s global status and have huge implications for Internet sales worldwide.

THE Art-Law Centre of Switzerland is holding an international symposium, entitled Claims for the Restitution of Looted Art, at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva on November 10.

$45m fine for Sotheby’s but five years to pay: Diana ‘Dede’ Brooks, former president and chief executive of Sotheby’s, has pleaded guilty in a Manhattan Federal Court to price-fixing with Christie’s between 1993 and 1999.

FRANCE: RARELY can so many leading lights in the international art and antiques business have been gathered in the same room as happened at the luxurious George V hotel in Paris on Tuesday, October 3.

UK: THE Court of Appeal has set a precedent under case law which forces auctioneers to sell to the highest bidder where a reserve has not been set, regardless of how low the winning bid is.

Sotheby’s board of directors have approved payment of $256m to clients in the civil lawsuit which claimed collusion with Christie’s in setting charges for buyers in 1992 and sellers in 1995.

ACADEMY Auctioneers, London, have vowed to fulfil their commitments to existing clients, despite disputes over the sale of the company.

UK: THE London Chamber of Commerce are alerting dealers and auctioneers to a tightening in Customs regulations for those wanting temporary export licences for antiques – in particular jewellery.

UK: AN extensive Antiques Trade Gazette investigation has uncovered a string of complaints from dealers about a freight company, Gold Vale Associates operating as Radford International Movers, of Billericay in Essex.

THE French courts have suspended Yahoo’s appeal against a ban on its Web auctions of Nazi memorabilia while technical experts see if there is a way to prevent French Web-users gaining access to them.

A DISPUTE between a leading Web auctioneer and a dealer has highlighted a significant difference between Internet and live sales that could have widespread implications for the trade.