Earlier this month, however, a report from the U.S. Treasurythat the fine-art trade required no urgent action from federal lawmakers. Yet the effort to preserve the regulatory status quo for sales of art and antiquities didn’t just swell Sotheby’s lobbying budget over the past four years; it did the same for multiple players across sectors of the art industry.
related to trade and tariffs” throughout 2021, and simply “enforcement” in the first quarter of 2019. Although there is no reason to think these entries are anything but aboveboard, the vague phrasing doesn’t exactly do wonders to dispel notions of lobbyists engaging in veiled discussions to advance amorphous corporate interests.
Now that you know these results, you might expect COVID relief funding to dwarf all other lobbying priorities for the nonprofit spenders. But disclosure records once again tell a more complex tale.