From The Telegraph: The US Supreme Court has refused to grant a final appeal to a Florida company that discovered treasure on a sunken Spanish vessel but was then ordered to return the gold and silver to Spain. The Court did not give a reason for refusing the request from salvage specialist Odyssey Marine Exploration,… [Read more…]
May 15, 2012
The FBI has obtained a permit to use ground penetrating radar to re-search the property of alleged mobster Robert Gentile. The 75-year-old has been held since February on federal drug and weapons charges. The warrant was issued on the premise that the FBI may find buried weapons, but Gentile’s lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan, believes the… [Read more…]
May 9, 2012
An Italian regional magistrate has upheld an order for the seizure of the Greek statue, now named the “Getty Bronze,” from the J. Paul Getty Museum’s antiquities collection. Italy claims the bronze statue of a victorious athlete was illegally exported from Italy before the museum bought it for $4 million in 1976. The statue is… [Read more…]
May 7, 2012
Antonio Manfredi, director of the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, is pledging to burn three pieces of art each week in protest against the lack of monetary support for Italy’s museums and culture. He has already destroyed two paintings and is selecting more from the museum’s collection of 1,000 works. The museum is located in an… [Read more…]
May 3, 2012
The Tokyo National Museum has acknowledged it holds a set of armor and headpiece worn by a Chosun prince, which Korean civil organizations allege was illegally exported during Japan’s rule of Korea. The Museum has argued that the 1,100 Korean antiquities in the Okura collection should not be returned because they were privately owned before… [Read more…]
May 2, 2012
A sentencing hearing was held Monday for Californian Wyatt Yeager, who pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $1 million worth of rare coins from the American Numismatic Association Money Museum in Colorado Springs. The court ordered he spend 27 months in prison followed by two years of supervised release. In 2007, Yeager worked for the museum… [Read more…]
May 1, 2012
So many law students and lawyers have contacted me in the last few years asking how to break into the field of art law that I knew I had to come up with a good response. The truth is, I’m far more of a cultural property law aficionado than an art lawyer! So I solicited… [Read more…]
April 30, 2012
Local media has reported that Serbian police have located Cezanne’s Boy in the Red Vest, stolen in 2008 during a raid on a Swiss museum and valued at $109 million. Other works stolen in the raid were by Monet, Van Gogh, and Degas. The Serbian police are waiting until an expert can verify the authenticity… [Read more…]
April 27, 2012
On 22 March 2012, Palestine deposited with the Director-General its instrument of ratification of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. This makes Palestine the 122nd State party to the Convention. Late in 2011, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and… [Read more…]
April 20, 2012
Spain has filed a motion to recover fees and costs of approximately $4 million in the “Black Swan” case. According to the Local Admiralty Rule 7.03-(g), Spain should have petitioned for fees at the same time it moved to have the arrest vacated, which it never did. In the motion for fees, Spain argues that… [Read more…]
May 17, 2012
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