Welcome to 2019.

In many ways, this year may reverse some of the developments of 2018 – at least insofar as the art law world is concerned. The reason for this is that a number of important cases decided in 2018 are under appeal, with the appeals to be heard (and likely decided) in the year ahead. The cases include ACLBDD Holdings Ltd v de Pury & de Pury LLP (noted up by Michael Bowmer in the April issue of Art Antiquity and Law), about the commission on the $210 million sale of a Gauguin painting, the appeal of which before the Court of Appeal of England and Wales is scheduled for April. Also of note is the High Court’s 2018 decision involving an attempted export of a Giotto, Simonis v Arts Council England, which is set for an appeal hearing in July. Also in export matters, the contentious case involving the export of a work by the Impressionist painter Gustav Caillebotte from Canada (which has major implications for museums in that country due to its knock-on effects on the tax scheme for donations), Heffel v Attorney General, will be heard in February.

Speaking of export matters, for those in the UK looking to have their say about a proposed change to the export licensing system run by Arts Council England, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will be accepting submissions until 24 February 2019 (IAL will be making a submission on some of the legal points in the proposal). The proposal is an attempt to force would-be exporters to agree to binding offers made by UK institutions during the export deferral period following an export application.

Finally, in IAL matters, we will once again be running our Diploma in Art Profession Law and Ethics in 2019. This is the course for art and museum professionals, as well as lawyers, covering the many areas of art law. It runs in London one Saturday a month over seven months. The first session, covering intellectual property, takes place on 12 January 2019. For more information, see here. And of course, we will be publishing four new issues of our journal Art Antiquity and Law throughout the year, with many interesting articles to come.

If anyone has other points of interest for 2019, please tweet them to us at @IAL_art_law. We look forward to seeing you at one of our events this year.