Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 540 - 546)

TUESDAY 23 MAY 2000

MR EDWARD DOLMAN, MR SIMON TAYLOR, MR CHRISTOPHER ELWES AND MR PAUL WHITFIELD

  540. That is what I ask you.

  (Mr Dolman) There are cases in divorce where one or other party would demand to know who was selling this particular item for sale, and we would follow that through ourselves to check whether or not it was correct, in that instance, to do anything about that sale, but we would not immediately, if someone came to us saying, "Is my husband selling that?", answer the question.

  541. So, in fact, the request would have to be well-founded before you dealt with it, despite what you are saying?
  (Mr Taylor) I think that Mr Dolman has done a very good job in answering the question, but every case—

  542. I think he has done a very good job in dodging the question.
  (Mr Taylor) Every case is taken on its own merits, so there cannot be any hard and fast rules. Again, to repeat, we have no interest in selling stolen or smuggled art, so any request that alerts us to the fact that an item may be stolen or smuggled will make us double our efforts internally to check the provenance, go back to the owner and, perhaps, ask more questions, without necessarily immediately passing on information to whoever asked that question. It will stimulate internal Due Diligence.

  543. It will stimulate it?
  (Mr Taylor) It certainly will.
  (Mr Dolman) Certainly, as we said earlier, if the police, or the tax authorities, or a court ask for our records, we produce them immediately.

  544. If it is an authority that asks to look at your records, it is done immediately. Is that what "well-founded request" means?
  (Mr Taylor) Neither of us are company lawyers. If you would like a legal response we can certainly provide a written submission afterwards.
  (Mr Dolman) I can assure you that if an individual expressed concerns about the good title of what we were selling, we would internally follow that up, because it would not be in our interest to go ahead with a sale that could potentially expose us to underhand activity or trading in stolen objects.

Ms Ward

  545. Can I just clarify something on that? Do you mean an individual or an agency in this country, or do you mean internationally?
  (Mr Dolman) I think internationally we will respond to it as well, as we did in Hong Kong recently.

  546. Including Italian authorities or police who would show an interest, perhaps, or some suspicion of an object?
  (Mr Dolman) Absolutely. When General Conforti contacts Christie's, we take it very seriously indeed.

  Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much. We have had a very illuminating morning. Thank you.





 
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