Law, crime and regulation

New rules governing trade in the parts of endangered species will hit the antiques trade harder than first thought.

UK dealers and auction houses have been alerted to the theft of six oil paintings by Evie Hone from a church in Ireland.

A new decree under French law has banned the mailing of banknotes, coins, jewellery and precious metals using the standard French postal system.

A Suffolk-based jewellery dealer with over 30 years experience in the trade faces ruin after falling victim to a sophisticated robbery last month.

New guidance from the European Commission has significantly tightened CITES rules, effectively banning the sale of a far wider range of antiques linked to endangered species.

Changes to the temporary import VAT scheme this month could have a major impact on dealers’ cash flow if they do not complete the necessary paperwork soon.

Henri Gros, partner in the Paris auctioneers Gros & Delettrez, has been suspended for two months for accepting €200,000 in small denomination notes from a Chinese buyer after the Paul-Louis Weiller sale in April 2011.

Three men who hid a £5m antiques haul taken from three country homes will be sentenced in a month’s time after the last of the gang admitted his guilt.

Two items of silver stolen from a Worcestershire house have been returned to the owner after a dealer recognised one of them from an alert in ATG.

Three men who were responsible for a sophisticated credit card fraud which targeted auction houses across the country have now been sentenced.

A Lonsdale Belt awarded to Welsh heavyweight boxing champion Jack Petersen has been stolen from his son’s home.

A UK-based businessman has been arrested on suspicion of looting Egyptian artefacts after he consigned several items into a Christie’s antiquities sale in London.

A demand from the National Archives for lots to be withdrawn from auction at Tennants of Leyburn could have wider implications for the trade in historical documents.

Dealers in New York can no longer use works consigned to them for sale by artists – or monies raised from their sale, beyond their own commissions – as debt collateral.

A new and alarming scam guide is targeting the trade with demands linked to European Union regulations and focusing on VAT.

Art dealer Niall Fairhead is leading a new campaign to persuade the Government to raise the Artist’s Resale Right threshold from €1000 to the €3000 stipulated by the European Commission.

Art dealer Hillel ‘Helly’ Nahmad, the high-profile owner of the Helly Nahmad Gallery in New York, has been named on a list of people charged with running an illegal gambling business.

Two items from the Chatsworth collection that sold at Sotheby’s in December have been placed under a temporary export bar, allowing public bodies or private individuals the chance to raise funds to keep them in the UK.

Rare items stolen during a robbery at the Lord Mayor of Newcastle’s Mansion House include a gold Nobel Peace Prize awarded in the 1930s to Arthur Henderson, a pioneer of the Labour Party and campaigner for disarmament.

John Nicholson has issued a warning to fellow auctioneers after what he dubbed a “bold and cunning” theft from his Fernhurst saleroom in Sussex on April 1.