Law, crime and regulation

Members of the European Parliament on a special committee for financial crime and tax evasion have warned of the art market potentially being used as “a suitable vehicle for illegal activity”, according to a report.

A cathedral in Germany has returned a painting that was seized by the Nazis in 1941 to the heirs of its original Jewish owners. The work had entered the collection of Adolf Hitler’s photographer Heinrich Hoffmann and was found among the numerous works he kept in a castle in Bavaria at the end of the Second World War.

A pair of ‘champagne’ lamps designed by surrealist artist Salvador Dalí has been bought by the Victoria and Albert Museum and will be reunited with Dalí’s Mae West Lips sofa.

Edinburgh auction house Lyon & Turnbull will no longer sell antique items made from rhino horn.

A US court claim challenging a 2014 New York law banning the sale of antique ivory by the Art and Antique Dealers League of America and the National Art and Antique Dealers Association of America has been reinstated due to amendments made to the case.

As we approach a crunch vote on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, a no-deal result is still a possibility – so too the prospect of an extension to the Article 50 process beyond the March 29 deadline.

The owner of a £5.75m John Singer Sargent oil painting has been temporarily prevented from exporting the picture by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

There is one week left to take part in an industry survey aimed at measuring the financial impact of the Ivory Act (2018), due to come into force later this year. We hear from one of those who has already responded.

New joiners in the world of art and antiques this week.

A group of eight antiquities that was consigned to Christie’s has been returned to Italy after the works were identified as not having the necessary export and provenance details to be sold.

London gallery Richard Green has said it will defend a claim made in the High Court by a client who purchased two Old Masters for €5m at TEFAF Maastricht last year.

A London auctioneer of stringed instruments has launched an online petition to exempt bows from the Ivory Act registration requirement.

Members of the trade federation Conseil National du Marché de l’Art (CNMA) have published an open letter to President Emmanuel Macron and the French government calling for changes to stop France’s art market losing out to the UK after Brexit.

The owner of a handwritten page from Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ has been temporarily prevented from exporting it out of the UK by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).