Posted on: December 9, 2021 by Alexander Herman
Collector Michael Steinhardt has been in the news this week, and not for the right reasons. On Monday, an agreement was announced whereby the New York DA’s Office would not prosecute Steinhardt for acquiring looted antiquities and, in exchange, Steinhardt would surrender 180 such artefacts to the DA, and these will soon (one hopes) be […]
Posted on: September 30, 2021 by Alexander Herman
This piece first appeared on The Art Newspaper website on 28 September 2021. *** Much is happening in the global debate over the rightful place of cultural objects. Not a week goes by, it seems, without an important return being announced. Last week it was the return at a ceremony in Washington DC of the ancient […]
Posted on: September 1, 2021 by Alexander Herman
On 9 August a decision came down from the High Court of England and Wales that imparts an important lesson about limitation periods and related timelines for the service of proceedings. The decision also reveals useful information about a particular dispute over allegedly fake antiquities, showing just what happens when negotiations between buyer and seller […]
Posted on: May 25, 2021 by Alexander Herman
The UK government last week began the process to repeal a prohibition on the import of cultural goods unlawfully removed from their country of origin. Seeing as this repeal could potentially damage the reputation of the UK’s art market, one expert body is urging the UK to take additional measures to minimise any risks associated […]
Posted on: April 20, 2021 by Alexander Herman
Every so often, we take a peek at the copyright situation in the USA. There are many reasons for this. Stateside, art and copyright cases are more plentiful than in the UK (and much of the world), perhaps because there is more at stake financially or simply because the culture is more litigious. Additionally, the […]
Posted on: March 23, 2021 by Alexander Herman
Readers of this blog will know of our interest in a particular piece of EU law that came into effect throughout the EU territory on 28th December 2020. This predated the end of the Brexit Transition Period by three days and so applied to the UK as well, at least initially. The legislation was Regulation […]
Posted on: January 5, 2021 by Alexander Herman
If 2020 taught us anything it’s that making predictions is a futile – perhaps perilous – exercise. Looking back at our predictions for 2020 from last January only confirms this. Who would have thought that a global pandemic would tear through the fabric of our cozy existence, all the while upsetting a number of accepted […]
Posted on: December 22, 2020 by Alexander Herman
If the end of year is necessarily a busy time, this has only been accentuated by the chaos wreaked by the pandemic and, for those in the UK, the impending end of the Brexit transition period (which expires on 31 December). We can certainly say that the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport […]
Posted on: December 17, 2020 by Alexander Herman
An interesting debate has taken place in France between its two chambers of Parliament: the Senate and the National Assembly. It has arisen in the context of a Bill presented at the National Assembly on 16 July to restitute to the countries of Benin and Senegal a total of 27 items held within French public […]
Posted on: October 1, 2020 by Alexander Herman
This comment first appeared on The Art Newspaper website on 25 September 2020. It has been reproduced with the editorial staff’s kind permission. Is the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) going to sell its Michelangelo? It seems a preposterous proposition, but these are rather preposterous times. The idea, apparently floated by a handful of Royal […]