The constraints on resale placed on works sold in the primary market often involve a form of moral coercion. The same players can currently fulfil multiple roles-auctioneer, dealer, and collector for example-that, in other markets, would be deemed to involve unacceptable conflicts of interest.

There is clearly much to be done by those wishing to develop a better framework for self-regulation. If the pattern of other markets is anything to go by, this will lead to increasing interest in the market’s eccentricities on the part of regulators wishing to protect innocents and, as a forestalling measure, increasing emphasis by the art market on the merits of self-regulation. In contemporary art, in particular, there is also now a range of consultants and publications devoted to developing and stimulating the market. Prices continue to rise and the volume of sales, particularly in new markets in the Middle and Far East, continue to break records. There are also many new entrants into the market, whose sophistication and understanding of the market cannot be taken for granted. However, both the primary markets (dealers representing artists) and secondary markets (dealers and auction-house re-selling work already out of the hands of the artist) have grown in complexity and size and in the number of players. Its relatively modest size, and the view held by regulators and legislators (that it is a place for consenting adults to indulge in irrational private acts) have meant that only the most flagrant restrictive practices, involving the abuse of innocent third parties-such as the Christie’s-Sotheby’s commission-fixing scam of the 1990s-stimulate efforts at criminal prosecution.

The art market is the last significant unregulated market in the UK and the US, subject to only the most rudimentary oversight.

Owning Art by Louisa Buck