Category: Art Dealers

UK Art Businesses Fined for Money Laundering Compliance Failures

Art Dealers, Art Market, Money Laundering
Nearly 50 UK art businesses have landed on a newly published list of Art Market Participants (AMPs) that failed to comply with money laundering regulations, according to a disclosure by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) last week. The fines were first reported by the Art Newspaper. Galleries such as Opera and Carl Kostyál made the HMRC list, as did a fundraising initiative led by White Cube. The penalties, issued between January 1 and September 30, 2024, average over £3,000 and peak at £13,000. All stemmed from failure to register by the June 2021 deadline. One gallerist, speaking anonymously to the…

Former Art Advisor Lisa Schiff Sentenced To 30 Months In Prison For Defrauding Clients

Art Dealers, Art Market, Fraud
Matthew Podolsky, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that LISA SCHIFF, a Manhattan-based art advisor focused on contemporary art, was sentenced today to 30 months in prison by U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken for perpetrating a multi-year scheme in which she defrauded the clients of her art advisory business of approximately $6.5 million in connection with the purchase and sale of approximately fifty-five artworks. Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky said: “For five years, Lisa Schiff breached the trust of her art advisory clients by diverting millions of dollars to pay her…

International operation leads to seizure of 2 000 fake works of art with potential losses of EUR 200 million

Art Dealers, Art Market, Fraud
Thirty-eight people have been indicted following an unprecedented operation supported by Eurojust against a criminal network for forging over 2 000 works of contemporary art. A year-and-a-half-long investigation by Italian authorities, in cooperation with Belgian, French and Spanish counterparts, led to the dismantling of the network, which would have caused economic damage of EUR 200 million. Fake art seizedThe fake art recovered by the authorities included forged works by famous artists such as Banksy, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Francis Bacon, Wassily Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh and Salvador Dalí. Investigations into the fake works revealed…

What the UK’s updated anti-money laundering rules mean for the art market

Art Dealers, Art Market, Money Laundering
For those in the art market currently spending August wondering how best to navigate the opaque waters of UK anti-money laundering (‘AML’) legislation, this year the beach reading is slightly cheerier. Arguably, the scope of those participants in the art market who are regulated for AML is not as wide as once thought, and the statutory obligations to conduct Customer Due Diligence (‘CDD’) are potentially not as onerous as anticipated. A year ago, my article on anti-money laundering measures in the art market focused on the recent risk assessment published by the government. It then seemed too soon to see…

UK’s revenue and customs agency begins handing out fines to art market players

Art Dealers, Money Laundering
HMRC, the UK’s revenue and customs agency, has started to hand out fines to art market participants (those handling transactions of €10,000 or above) who failed to register under the new anti-money laundering legislations, by the June 2021 deadline. The list of companies and individuals receiving fines will not be publicly available (via the government’s website) until later this year, but one such penalty notice seen by The Art Newspaper makes it clear that “trading whilst unregistered” was now being pursued as a breach of the regulations. In addition to carrying out increased due diligence, art market participants have been…