Guided Dossiers of the Association

The Swiss Art Market Association “SAMA” monitors current events in the national and international art market and reports on an ongoing basis, summarising relevant trends and results for its members and interested parties. In addition to informing its members, the management of the dossiers, which are thus arranged according to seven themes, allows the SAMA to take an active role in the discussion of current issues that concern art market participants, but also politics, administration, science and press reporting. In addition to this presentation, which is always kept up to date, we inform our members by sending out a quarterly newsletter, which takes up national and international press coverage in the structure according to the defined dossiers.

Copyright

The SAMA is committed to ensuring that copyright legislation reflects the interests of all art market participants, even in the digital age. It has been successfully argued that the introduction of the so-called resale right (“droit de suite”) would have significantly more negative effects on the art trading market. The advantage of foregoing this additional levy when selling a work of art on the secondary market benefits all participants, including the artists. The SAMA continues to participate in current discussions with the IGE (Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property), the BAK (Federal Office of Culture), ProLitteris, etc., for example on the topic of “Appropriation Art” or “Photographic Image Protection”, and informs its members about the state of legislation and practice in the course of the digital transformation. Copyright issues will also become increasingly important in areas such as “NFT”, “tokenisation of works of art”, etc.

Money Laundering Prevention

The SAMA is promptly following the problematic European development of an increasing tightening of money laundering guidelines also in the art market and is trying to exert influence in order to counteract adequate regulation by informing people about the reality of the profession of art and antiques trading. After all, galleries and dealers cannot be treated the same as banks. The problem is accentuated by newly created sanction laws against Russian oligarchs. The SAMA is actively working on self-regulatory measures in all these areas (formulated, for example, as an association recommendation to set up a threshold for accepting cash up to CHF 25,000) and is holding talks with various players such as ArtBasel, the RAM (Responsible Art Market) initiative, but above all with the federal administration. The aim of these efforts, with the inclusion of new technological solutions, is to establish pragmatically understood due diligence in the purchase and sale of works, adapted to the circumstances, in order to avoid any further legislative projects that generate disproportionate effort for market participants.

Protection of cultural property

New stricter EU regulation for 2025

The EU has issued a new Regulation (EU) 2019/880 on the import of cultural goods. The implementation period for the member states runs until 2025, and the aim of the regulation is to further tighten the import of cultural goods unlawfully exported from their countries of origin into the EU, regardless of whether objects are imported directly from their countries of origin or via third countries. Archaeological cultural goods are a particular focus of the new EU regulation and generally require an import licence. To this end, the owner must provide documentation and information to prove that the cultural property was lawfully exported from the country in which it was created or discovered. Exceptions to this principle only apply to archaeological cultural property with an unknown country of origin or where the export from the country of origin took place before 1972. In these cases, proof is required that the cultural property was located in the country of export for at least five years and was legally exported.

Such a country of origin principle exists in Switzerland only for cultural property that is imported into Switzerland directly from a country with which Switzerland has concluded a bilateral agreement on the import and repatriation of cultural property.

The new, even stricter EU regulations do not yet have a fully foreseeable impact on the Swiss art market: it is clear that the export of certain cultural goods from Switzerland to the EU will require an import licence from 2025 at the latest. However, even for its own imports, Switzerland only has stricter requirements for direct imports from bilateral partner countries. The SAMA is currently in discussions with the FOC’s Cultural Property Transfer Centre in order to find a practical response to the tightening of EU regulations for the Swiss art market.

Looted art

Creation of an independent expert commission for historically significant cultural heritage in 2024:

At its meeting on 22 November 2023, the Federal Council adopted an ordinance that came into force at the beginning of 2024. It is thus implementing Parliament’s mandate, which was merely the first paragraph of a much more comprehensive and binding Pult motion (I.). The commission that is now to be created is to deal primarily with Nazi-looted art and cultural assets from a colonial context that were expropriated during the Nazi era or seized from their communities of origin. The term “historically contaminated cultural heritage”, which was newly created by the legislator and is open to interpretation, is therefore not exactly a happy choice.

There is no doubt that the National Socialist era also left its mark on art and culture. Cultural assets from Jewish ownership were directly or indirectly expropriated at the time, with the long-established distinction between looted art and fugitive property becoming increasingly blurred in recent years. Some of this looted art also ended up in Switzerland. With the appointment of an independent expert commission, the details of which have yet to be determined, the Federal Council is now creating a body that will provide expert advice to assist the parties in what are generally ethically sensitive and controversial cases. It is important to note that these recommendations will certainly not have any binding effect on the legislator.

In addition, the fate of cultural artefacts from a colonial context is increasingly becoming the focus of public attention. In this context, the confiscation of such goods, which once belonged to the communities of origin, and their transfer to Europe are at the centre of the discussion. The independent expert commission will also discuss cases relating to this topic and make recommendations of a non-binding nature.

(Value added) tax

The SAMA is in discussion with customs and VAT authorities, with warehouse keepers, transporters, insurers and other players in the industry. Half-truths are to be countered by transparent information about the current customs and tax legislation. Work should be done to ensure that future adjustments, especially to VAT and customs legislation, reflect the realities of the various transactions in the art market. In times after the pandemic, talk of reducing bureaucracy will finally have to be translated into action. The SAMA also wants to advocate for tax models as an incentive for the acquisition of works of art.

Sustainability

Sustainability is probably the most pressing issue of the present day – also in the art world. The players are looking for ways to save resources and reduce their ecological footprint. Energy consumption, storage, transport, travel, exhibition organisation: there is a need for action in all areas. The SAMA is facing up to the ecological restructuring of the art business and is constantly evaluating providers who offer interesting services in this area. For example, in the area of transport and logistics, companies that offer marketable systems of recyclable transport boxes. In addition, the SAMA supports the project of the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) to establish an “Office Switzerland” in Switzerland.

Digitisation

The SAMA is following the development of the market very closely in various digitisation projects (on topics such as money laundering and provenance research, authenticity issues, etc.). In this transformation of the art market, which has experienced an incredible acceleration according to COVID-19, the SAMA also wants to take a leading role for the association members and offer assistance so that smaller businesses are not denied access to digital business models. New business models are also being pursued in the area of sustainability.

Beyond purely economic interests, the SAMA wants to emphasise the cultural significance of the work of the members of the four art trade associations. An intact art trade is still a driving force for a vital cultural location in Switzerland. In order to be able to continue this important work in the future, it is necessary to conduct a dialogue with the political and legal authorities that is not closed to the special features of the art market.