Last week, an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in a case examining the constitutionality of California Civil Code § 986, known as the California Resale Royalties Act.  The case has potentially important implications for those collecting or dealing in fine art.

In the fall of 2012, the MacAndrews & Forbes Group, LLC and MAFG Art Fund, LLC, two holding companies controlled by business mogul Ronald Perelman sued legendary art dealer Larry Gagosian and his Gagosian Gallery over a complex series of transactions involving works by, among others, Cy Twombly and Jeff Koons.  Last week, the case ended with a defeat for Perelman—and a reminder to art buyers that courts are increasingly scrutinizing their pre-sale diligence almost as closely at times as the dealer’s alleged wrongdoing.

During the first week of November, two works by Egon Schiele sold at auction—one at Christie’s and one at Sotheby’s. This blog post examines the troubled stories behind these works, the way the two sales unfolded, and what they can teach us about the current state of art restitution efforts.

In mid-September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a decision with important tax and estate-planning ramifications for art collectors.  This case is being hailed as a “victory” for collectors in that it supports the general availability of fractional-ownership discounts as a viable tool in the arsenal when it comes to tax and estate planning regarding art assets.

Earlier this week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit addressed the scope of the “fair use doctrine” as a defense to copyright-infringement claims.  In doing so, the court had some harsh words for the Second Circuit’s much-anticipated decision last year in Cariou v. Prince.  The court’s ruling is the latest to analyze the significance of “transformative use” in determining the fair-use defense, and it sets up an interesting divergence among the Circuits on this important topic.

When it comes to claims involving allegedly looted or stolen art and cultural property, high-profile (and high-stakes) litigation often takes center stage.  But the art world is paying increased attention to the rise of voluntary, negotiated repatriation and restitution of works to claimants.  This option can lead to productive and mutually beneficial dialogues, partnerships, and outcomes; it also requires careful planning and legal advice.

The Visual Artists Rights Act, 17 U.S.C. § 106A (commonly known as VARA) aims to protect artists’ “moral rights” related to the proper attribution of their works, as well as the physical “integrity” of the works themselves.  A survey in 2003 concluded that the law was still little-used, although awareness of VARA was increasing.  As the Wall Street Journal observed in 2010, the contours of VARA are continually evolving.  Over the past year, two lawsuits have highlighted some of the ongoing questions about how VARA protects the rights of artists, particularly when the art at issue has been created on property owned by someone else.

In the last few months, three different lawsuits have been filed that highlight some of the legal complications involved in seeking, offering, or relying upon authentication of works of art.  We intend to follow closely each of these cases, and other important legal developments concerning art authentication.

Last year, this blog covered a federal court’s decision involving New York-based ACA Galleries, Inc.’s purchase of a painting purportedly created by artist Milton Avery.  In a recent decision affirming that opinion, the Second Circuit reiterated the warning to galleries and collectors about the importance of completing comprehensive due diligence before purchasing any work of art.

Earlier this week, the New York Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) issued a much-anticipated decision upholding the auction industry’s longstanding practice of allowing sellers to remain anonymous. Given the importance of auction houses to the art market, and the importance of consignor anonymity to that market, this decision will likely be greeted with relief by many in the art world.

After a long court battle, an ancient Cambodian statue, consigned to Sotheby’s for sale in 2011, will be returned to that country under an agreement signed last week.  The Khmer statue, valued at over $2 million, was pulled from auction because of assertions it had been looted from the Prasat Chen temple site at Koh Ker.

This firm’s attorneys were involved in the very first suit arising out of the infamous forgery scandal against the now-defunct Knoedler Gallery. Since then, this blog has covered ongoing developments in the strange story of a once-venerable art gallery’s involvement in the sale of dozens of paintings masquerading as works by twentieth-century masters like Pollock, Rothko, and de Kooning.  The works were in fact created by a little-known artist working in Queens, and marketed by Long Island art dealer Glafira Rosales, who has since pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges arising out of the scheme.

Last month, the Hopi tribe took Eve auction house to court in an effort to block the sale of 25 sacred artifacts, which the tribe believes are imbued with divine spirits. In spite of this legal—not to mention, moral—challenge, a French court allowed the Paris auction house to proceed with the December 9th sale. The Native American tribe maintains that the objects were stolen and that selling them amounts to sacrilege.

This blog has previously covered the putative class action involving the Google Books Library Project, Google’s ongoing effort to collect and scan millions of books (included copyrighted works) to make them searchable online.  The case of Authors Guild v. Google (No. 05-08136) was initiated in 2005 by authors claiming that Google’s process of scanning, digitizing, indexing, and making publicly available short “snippets” of their books is copyright infringement.

Amid criticism from groups representing Holocaust victims and their heirs and growing international pressure to disclose more information about the cache of art found in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, Germany has announced that it will speed provenance research of the artworks, as well as begin to publish online details about the works.

Since 1974, the Dia Art Foundation has worked to support innovative contemporary artists.  Over the years, the Foundation has commissioned groundbreaking works and mounted and maintained installations and exhibitions from New York to New Mexico to Germany. But a rift between some of its original founders and the Dia’s current leadership has led to litigation over the fate of some iconic works in the Foundation’s collection, and debate over the mission and future of the organization itself.

From 1954 until his death in 1976, famed sculptor Alexander Calder was represented by Manhattan dealer Klaus Perls.  Over the course of more than two decades, the pair forged a close friendship as well.  Their contributions to the art world are formidable; Calder’s groundbreaking mobile works sell for millions of dollars, while Perls was a highly respected dealer and collector who donated more than $60 million worth of masterworks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art prior to his death in 2008.  Now, both men are gone, and their families are in court amid allegations that Perls defrauded Calder’s estate and sold dozens of fake Calder works.

On October 16, California-based artist and illustrator Lisa Congdon posted an entry on her blog entitled “My Art Was Stolen For Profit (and How You Can Help).”  In it, she laid out her claim that wholesale company Cody Foster & Co., which sells ornaments and other home-décor items to retailers around the world, had copied some of her artwork to make a set of holiday ornaments, and then marketed the ornaments for sale—without permission by or compensation to Congdon.  This matter highlights critical issues for copyright holders, would-be copyright infringers, and merchants who sell potentially infringing works.

Our attorneys were involved in the very first suit arising out of the infamous forgery scandal against the now-shuttered Knoedler Gallery. And this blog has covered multiple chapters since, detailing along the way the remarkable twists and turns in the dramatic tale of Knoedler’s involvement in the sales of dozens of works purportedly created by some of the top artists of the twentieth century—including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and Willem de Kooning—that have since been revealed as fakes.

The art world remains riveted by the still-unfolding scandal involving the once-renowned Knoedler Gallery.  To recap, over the course of more than a decade, Knoedler solddozens of works of art purportedly created by some of the most sought-after artists of the twentieth century—works that have since been widely discredited as fakes.  A Long Island art dealer named Glafira Rosales—who has now pleaded guilty, among other things, to charges of wire fraud, filing false tax returns and money laundering—allegedly told the Knoedler Gallery at the time that she represented an anonymous collector who was gradually liquidating his late father’s remarkable art collection.