Sotheby's fined £13m for fixing prices

Sotheby's auction house was fined £12.9m by the European Commission yesterday for colluding with Christie's to cheat wealthy players in the international art market.

The fine represents 6 per cent of the company's annual turnover and comes after a court case in America that saw its former chairman Alfred Taubman, 68, fined £4.7m and jailed for a year over the fraud, which cost sellers £290m. Christie's escaped a fine because it provided the evidence that proved a cartel.

Mario Monti, the European commissioner in charge of competition policy, said Sotheby's and Christie's had broken EU competition rules after a price-fixing agreement was struck in 1993.