Category: Insights
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James Young and the Museum Robbery: New Zealand’s First Art-Theft Case?
On 3 March 1866, the Supreme Court at Wellington dealt with a small, strange, and very early piece of New Zealand cultural heritage crime: R v James Young. Young pleaded guilty to burglary and housebreaking after property stolen from the Colonial Museum at Thorndon was recovered from behind the walls of an empty house. The…
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Suspicious Activity in the Art Market: Money Laundering Risk and Prevention
Anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 are now a familiar feature of commercial life in New Zealand and will be expected by most people when dealing with banks, lawyers, accountants, real estate agents and other such “reporting entities”. Less familiar, perhaps, is…
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Lines Across History: Differing Approaches to Repatriation Claims in AU and NZ
In June 2020 an Australian company made a relatively ordinary online purchase of a pre-Columbian artefact from a gallery in Colorado. Unfortunately, it transpired the object had been unlawfully exported from Bolivia over seventy years prior, and was seized on arrival at the Australian border. What happened next was a long five year legal process…
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Contracts in the Art World: Lessons from the Courts
The art world thrives on trust. Dealers, artists and collectors often work together in relationships built on mutual understanding, and in that context, it seems that it is not uncommon for there to be no written record of what has been agreed. As we noted in a previous article on contracts in the art world,…
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Contracts in the Art World: Should they be in writing?
In an earlier article on basic concepts of contract law, we noted that contracts don’t need to be in writing to be binding. It is our experience that many deals between artists, galleries, dealers and collectors go undocumented. There are all sorts of reasons for this, but some see setting out a contract in writing…