Tag Archives: dcms

Export deferred Portrait of Mai to be co-purchased by NPG and Getty

Posted on: April 3, 2023 by Alexander Herman

An incredible piece of news dropped on the rather inauspicious time of Friday afternoon. This was the announcement of a plan by the National Portrait Gallery in London (NPG) and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles to jointly acquire the famous ‘Portrait of Omai’ by Joshua Reynolds (left), a work that has been export deferred […]

NFTs in the spotlight again – this time from a UK Parliamentary Committee

Posted on: January 30, 2023 by Emily Gould

“A year of great change” was how IAL Director, Alexander Herman, described 2022 in the IAL blog’s customary review of the year. Change has certainly been no stranger to those invested in NFTs and other crypto markets over the past year or so, with prices fluctuating wildly and markets extremely volatile. The soaring prices of […]

Museum ethics: when the law plays catch up

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 […]

UK government announces change to export licensing system

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 […]

Treasure, treasure everywhere – Government plans to update Treasure Act

Posted on: December 11, 2020 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds

On Friday 2nd December 2020 it is likely that many archaeologists, curators and metal detectorists woke up pleased at the announcement from the Government that the definition of treasure for the Treasure Act 1996 will be revised. However, it is also equally probable that the same number were perplexed and worried as to how this […]

Art loans: a linchpin for the sector in challenging times?

Posted on: September 5, 2019 by Emily Gould

It’s not often that the topic of art loans makes headline news, even in the cultural sector. Although loans of works of art and cultural artefacts represent the lifeblood of many institutions across the globe, they generally proceed under the radar, with little fuss or fanfare. The occasional blockbuster exhibition might attract press comment, drawing […]

Revising the definition of ‘treasure’

Posted on: May 1, 2019 by Geoffrey Bennett

Assiduous followers of the media, and possibly even those with no interest at all, may have noticed that Her Majesty’s Government has in recent months been slightly preoccupied with European legal perspectives. It therefore came as a welcome surprise that in February 2019 the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) announced a long-awaited […]

Judicial review undertaken for HMS Victory salvage

Posted on: April 10, 2019 by Rebecca Hawkes-Reynolds

Treasure, bounty, pirates – these words conjure up romantic adventures in peoples’ minds, none the more so than when they relate to historically important wrecks. An example of this is the HMS Victory which sank in 1744 in the Channel on its way back from a mission to relieve British ships blocked in the River […]

Our submission to the DCMS consultation on UK export controls

Posted on: March 8, 2019 by Alexander Herman

The IAL recently submitted a response to a consultation on export controls released by the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS). The consultation related to a recent proposal to introduce a legally binding offer into the mechanism by which would-be exporters are required to accept fair matching offers from UK institutions (or […]

Change to UK rules on export of cultural objects

Posted on: April 2, 2015 by Alexander Herman

Last month, the UK government finally responded to the Department for Culture Media & Sport’s consultation regarding changes to the cultural object export licensing system which took place between May and August 2012. The response indicated the changes that will be brought about to the export system and which have already been incorporated by the Arts Council in […]