At the auction, 116 collectors were fooled

At the beginning of this week, the Shanghai art auction market staged a farce: a large-scale auction site was lively, and auctioneers stared at the screen to “introduct” the auctions. The audience was hired under the pedestal. The others were from Shandong. 116 auctions were sold in Shanxi and other places. When they saw this scene and regretted endlessly, the auction did not respond, and the expensive auction fees paid attention to the flow of water. It is reported that the cultural company that hosted the auction has been exposed by the media in the field. This is just the tip of the iceberg of chaos in the art auction market, and it needs to arouse people's vigilance and reflection.

Hire people to join in

A farce involved in a false auction

On the 9th and 10th of January, an Anhui cultural company held a small art auction at the Everbright Convention & Exhibition Center International Hotel. This site called “2011 Shanghai Station Large Art Auction” was deserted. One auction item was not seen on the auction table. I saw a male auctioneer reading the text like a computer projection screen as quickly as possible. The auction hall was dead and there were few placards.

After investigation, several visitors on the court were actually residents hired by a cultural company. On the other hand, sellers offering auction targets occupied most of the seats at the auction. These collectors came from Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei and even Xinjiang, with a total of 116 people. Before the auction, according to the difference between the valuation of the auction product by this cultural company, they paid 10,000 to 4 million different auction handling fees.

At the beginning of the auction, there were Tibetan friends who suspected that this was a false auction. After learning that this cultural company had been exposed by the media in Hefei, Anhui. According to speculation by professionals, it may be a commercial fraud activity under the pretext of art auctions. At present, the police have been involved in the incident investigation.

In recent years, driven by huge profits, commercial fraud in the name of art auctions is not uncommon in China. The so-called cultural companies did not obtain the qualifications for the auction of cultural relics, but in the name of auctions, seduce ordinary people to send artworks to go to auctions that are not worthwhile, and defrauded for high “detection fees and insurance premiums”, and finally escaped with auctions. law justicfication.

Litigation rises

Lack of regulations leads to market confusion

The total number of cultural relics auction companies in mainland China is 220. According to incomplete statistics, the total annual turnover of the Chinese cultural relics and art auction market in 2010 was 50.2 billion yuan, an increase of 123% over the previous year. People seem to trust auction houses more than galleries or antique stores. Auctions have advantages that are not available in other trading methods: high transparency, reputation, comprehensive research on all pre-patched art, and public display before auction for the bidder's appraisal. It has been generally believed that the purchasers had to go to the auction house to get a good value for money at a high price.

At present, the drawbacks usually exist in China's art media market are the lack of market laws, lack of supervision, non-standard market operation mechanism, and false hype by some media and critics. Compared with the developed art market in the West, there is only one auction law published in 1997 to regulate the market. China's auction of cultural relics and art works is the Ministry of Commerce. The "Autumn Auctioneer Law" provides that the Ministry of Commerce has the qualifications for the approval of auction companies for access permits. However, there is no stipulation in the "Auction Law" as to how to supervise and administer legal responsibilities.

In response to this civil dispute, Xuhui Court Judge Hou Rongkang believes that with the rise of investment in art collections in recent years, the number of civil and commercial lawsuits litigated by courts is on the rise. When the court decided such cases, it generally became an important basis according to the "Contract Law" and the relevant provisions of the auction industry regulations, especially the "Artistic Art Auction Procedures" implemented on July 1, 2010.

For this week’s farce of art auctions, Judge Hou pointed out that if the responsible person of the cultural company is controlled by the police, the victim can file a lawsuit to the court to apply for property preservation to prevent further economic losses.

Don't speculate

The Tibetan mind must keep awake

Art auctions are a means of overnight wealth in the eyes of many people. “A lonely day, things can sell tens of millions of dollars.” This speculative psychology has made some collectors keen to find auction companies, but a few people really understand Auctions and own collections?

In fact, many clients only saw the astronomical artworks with a sky-high price of ten million yuan at the auction, but they knew very little about the specific operations of the auction, but they did not understand what the commissioned auctions needed to pay attention to; they did not understand whether their collections were true or false, nor were they Asked the company whether there was any auction of cultural relics and art works, which relevant competent authority approved the auction, and then they excitedly searched for the auction company, signed the commission contract with the auction company confusedly, and even handed over a sum of money to the auction company. This gives opportunities to companies that are not regulated.

For this reason, auction disputes have occurred in recent years. In the opinion of many experts, such disputes should not have existed. Therefore, it is necessary to remind collectors that they must first research the auction market and their own collection before the auction.

Lin Yiping, vice president of the China Association of Auctions and general manager of the Shanghai auction house, said that this farce of this week's art auction involves the auction of the most serious problems in Chinese art auctions. This behavior has seriously affected the reputation of other regular auction companies. It disrupts the market order and should be severely cracked down. As an entrusted party, it is also necessary to increase vigilance, at least in part to understand the value of the artworks that they send, and not to be lured by false high transaction prices. In addition, any regular auction company will not collect any "charges" before the auction. If the auction items are circulated in the auction, no fees will be charged.