LONDON - Sotheby's, the auctioneering firm, said yesterday it had suspended senior staff after allegations that it had broken the law by smuggling art treasures from Italy to Britain. Mr George Bailey, managing director of Sotheby's Europe, said he was taking the allegations made in an investigative television programme seriously and was conducting an investigation.
But he said he deplored the method of entrapment that he claimed the Dispatches programme used when it filmed Sotheby's staff in Milan with a hidden camera. The programme was shown on Channel 4 television last night.