The ELU's address and some contact telephone numbers and e-mail addresses are:
Victoria House, Southampton Row, London WC1B 4EA.
(020 7273 1444, info@mla.gov.uk)

Export Licensing Manager: David Uffindel (020 7273 8276, david.uffindell@mla.gov.uk)
Export Licensing Officer: Margaret Cates (020 7273 8266)
Export Licensing Officer: Ian Dunlop (020 7273 8269)
Fax: 020 7273 1424
The MLA also has an excellent guide for the trade, the staff of large collections and the general public alike on its website. Please click here for its Procedures and Guidance pages.

(The government has moved the export licensing function and the Reviewing Committee secretariat out of the DCMS to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA)).

Issue 6 (November 2005) of UK Export Licensing for Cultural Goods is now available from the MLA (telephone number and e-mail address above).

There has been a communication from the MLA regarding the new thresholds for export licences which came into effect on January 1st 2007. This came about because the limits are set in Euros rather than sterling. Manuscripts and archives are not affected since zero translates as nought, but the lower limits for printed books and maps (together with photographs, engravings and prints) have gone up, respectively from £30,400 to £34,300 and from £9,100 to £10,200.

New Open General Export licence (OGEL) thresholds (revised upwards in many categories) came into force on 1^st November 2002. This uplift in the OGEL limits does not remove the need for licences for export of cultural good outside the EU. Pamphlets on Procedures and Guidance for Exporters of Works of Art and Other Cultural Goods are available from the MLA (contact details above).

Where printed matter contains inscriptions whose literary, scholarly or historical interest increases the commercial value of the printed material, it shall be treated as a manuscript for the purposes of export licensing.

Note:
Simple ownership or presentation inscriptions will not be considered to meet this test, even when they increase the financial value of the item, unless they are of particular interest (such as an inscription giving evidence of ownership by a major writer or thinker).

Provision of provenance on export licence applications

The ABA Export of Manuscripts sub-committee has been for some time concerned about demands for additional provenance on export licence applications, particularly for manuscripts and autograph letters.

The Export Licensing Unit (ELU) for the Museums Libraries Archives Council (MLA) has now issued a letter explaining the reasoning behind these requests. The following is a brief résumé of the arguments.

1. The ELU needs to know whether an object (i.e. manuscript or autograph letter) has been in the UK for less than 50 years because different criteria will apply to the licence.

2. If the object has been imported from an EU country, there needs to be evidence (such as a French ‘passport’) that it was imported legally.

3. Where the evidence is not forthcoming the ELU will refer the licence application to an expert adviser (in the case of manuscripts, at the British Library). The provision of provenance will help the adviser to decide whether the object is of national importance (i.e. whether it may fall under one of the Waverley Criteria and require reference to the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art)

4. If insufficient provenance is provided the ELU (not the expert adviser) will instigate investigations to establish whether the object has been in the UK for less than 50 years.

It should be remembered that objects legally imported into the UK within the last 50 years will normally receive an export licence without reference to an adviser, and that it is therefore in the interests of exporters to provide evidence if this is the case.

If it is not possible to supply evidence of ‘recent’ importation it then helps to say where it came from, for instance by giving in a covering letter the details of any auction history.

If the applicant for a licence does not give what the ELU regard as sufficient provenance he/she will probably be approached by the ELU for further information.

This is not the outcome that the ABA had hoped for. It is frequently the case that autographs letters, for instance, have come from collections dispersed many years ago, and have often been in a dealer’s stock for decades. Dealers are also, quite reasonably, unwilling to disclose what they regards as confidential business information, even though the ELU have assured us that everything said in relation to an export licence application is regarded as highly confidential.

Further guidance can be found on line at the MLA’s website www.mla.gov.uk. In addition a new website has been established to provide information on all cultural property issues at www.culturalpropertyadvice.gov.uk. This site includes a checklist for purchasers giving a number of questions that a buyer may care to ask. These include ‘Ask where the object came from including its country of origin …’ and ‘Buy from a member of a professional trade association’.