Art & Cultural Property Group

Art Lenders Outside the US Get Creative

Meanwhile, Pierre Valentin and Azmina Jasani at the law firm Constantine Cannon, are lobbying the UK’s Law Commission to establish a register of borrowed works, akin to the US Universal Commercial Code system, which allows borrowers to retain works. Unless the system is reformed, the UK is “at a competitive disadvantage when compared to the United Stated”, the lawyers write on the firm’s website. Read More

Guest Speaker, Art & Law Seminar

National Museum, Delhi, India, February 2016.

Consumer Rights Act 2015, New Consumer Remedies: Be Prepared

Antiques Trade Gazette, October 2015. Click here to read the article.

A Tug of War Over Art-Sales Transparency

These cases would seem to validate the assertion made at the Art Business Conference by Pierre Valentin, a partner in the London law firm Constantine Cannon, that to characterize the art market as unregulated was “complete nonsense,” since legal processes are at least in operation. He told delegates that research by his firm had shown that the British art market, for example, was governed by 167 laws and regulations, “and that figure was going up, not going down.” Read More

The Art Market Unregulated? Absolutely Not.

Georgina Adam isn’t holding her breath waiting for the art market to police itself. But it turns out the worthies invited to the Art Business Conference she chaired in London had some very strong words to say about the supposed lack of regulation in the art market: Specialist lawyer Pierre Valentin disposed of the notion that the market is totally unregulated: “The idea that it’s a lawless free-for-all is complete nonsense,” he said, citing the 167-plus laws and regulations that...Read More

Emerging Art Gets a Fair Start

The subject of regulation of the art market and money laundering has never been more pressing, particularly since economist Nouriel Roubini brought it up at Davos this year. So it was inevitable that a number of panels at last week’s Art Business Conference in London [disclosure: I was conference chair] tackled this thorny subject. Specialist lawyer Pierre Valentin disposed of the notion that the market is totally unregulated: “The idea that it’s a lawless free-for-all is complete nonsense,” he said, Read More

Fair Use Under US Law: Experience of the Cariou v Prince Litigation

Speaker; Institute of Art and Law, London, June 2015.

The Art of Asset Finance

There has been an explosion of activity in the market for art and collectables, including musical instruments, jewellery, classic cars and fine wine in recent years. Collectors are paying record sums and the market is more international than ever, with new players arriving from Asia, the Middle East, Russia and South America. Read More

Cardsharps Case Shows Caravaggio's Lasting Talent for Trouble

Instead, explains Pierre Valentin, who heads Constantine Cannon’s art and cultural property law practice, “its potential was enough. In the art world there is increasingly litigation over how paintings should be described when sold at auction, with various gradations — a work can be attributed to, from the studio of or from the circle of an old master, down to being “after” the master, meaning that it’s a copy. A painting described in the upper gradations — for example, from... Read More

Los Angeles Art Market Hots Up

The art market is often considered to be totally “unregulated” but, listening to art law specialist Pierre Valentin speaking last week at the Art Business Conference in London, this is not so. Aspects of the new EU consumer rights directive, which regulate “distance sales” (including sales over the internet) are many and complex, starting with the very definition of the term. Describing the rules as “draconian”, Valentin told an audience of art market professionals: “Don’t imagine that you can think,...Read More