Law, crime and regulation

TWO years since it launched, the jewellery trade’s anti-crime alert network, SaferGems, has been helping to forge stronger links between the UK’s 43 different police forces.

ONE SaferGems alert featured two men wanted in connection with a jewellery theft at a discount jewellery shop in Spring Bank, Hull. During the incident one offender distracted the jeweller while the other stole jewellery to the value of £2300.

RAMRAIDERS have smashed their way into the Court Barn Museum, home to the Guild of Handicrafts collection, and stolen unique pieces of silver.

A GROUP of American artists have filed class action lawsuits against Christie’s and Sotheby’s complaining they have violated the 1976 California Resale Royalty Act.

THE Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts have decided to dissolve the controversial Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board in early 2012.

POLICE are appealing for help after 27 Chinese works of art were stolen from Stroud Auction Rooms in Gloucestershire a day before they were due to be sold.

DETECTIVE work by a Cornish auctioneer has led to a jail sentence for a 40-year-old former art teacher who defrauded galleries and members of the public by selling fakes.

A LONG-running anti-trust complaint against the Andy Warhol Foundation – one that caused them to close the authentication service – concerned a work denied twice by their board.

FOURTEEN antiques of ‘significant, cultural and historic value’ have been recovered and two men arrested in connection with three high-profile country house thefts in 2009.

FOUR people have gone on trial in Germany on charges linked to a multi-million pound art fraud exposed as a result of scientific testing on paint.

MORE details have come to light regarding the break-in at Long Street Antiques Centre in Tetbury during the early hours of Friday, August 26.

FOLLOWING the recent report about cheque fraud in July on Portobello Road and Westbourne Grove, additional incidents have emerged of suspected fraud around London using cheques under the account name GC Commodity’s (sic).

THE Westport Police Department is investigating the theft of two Chinese Louhan head sculptures, recently stolen from a private collection in Westport, Connecticut.

As the spectre of droit de suite for artists’ heirs looms large over the British art market, the main copyright and licensing collecting agency in the United States is pushing to see the debate over artists’ resale rights revived on Capitol Hill.

DURING the early hours of Tuesday, August 16, the Antique Textiles Company in Hampstead was vandalised – the victim of what is thought to be a revenge attack.

TWO men have been charged with handling stolen goods following the recovery of a number of pictures from the Halewood area of Liverpool.

THE US Appeals Court has upheld the New York District Court ruling in Christie’s favour in the dispute over a long-lost work thought to be by Leonardo da Vinci.

ENCOURAGING words from Downing Street and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt in the past year gave us hope that finally something would be done about the impending threat to the British art market of the extension of the Artists’ Resale Right to the estates of artists who have been dead for less than 70 years.

EBAY users are being warned of a new scam that targets sellers who allow buyers to collect items in person.

THEFTS of old rhino horn trophies, wanted for their value in Chinese medicine, are continuing.