Freeport Holdings and the Art World

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The New York Times has an interesting article on the Geneva Freeport which has played such a part in recent discussions on the no-questions-asked antiquities trade:

Though little known outside the art world, this surprisingly drab series of buildings is renowned by dealers and collectors as the premier place to stash their most valuable works. They come for the security and stay for the tax treatment. For as long as goods are stored here, owners pay no import taxes or duties, in the range of 5 to 15 percent in many countries. If the work is sold at the Freeport, the owner pays no transaction tax, either. Once it exits the premises — either because it’s been sold or because the original owner has moved it — taxes are owed in the country where it winds up. But for as long as a work is in the Freeport, it’s as if it resides in a no-man’s land where there is no Caesar to render unto.[...] How much art is stockpiled in the 435,000 square feet of the Geneva Freeport? That’s a tough one. The canton of Geneva, which owns an 86 percent share of the Freeport, does not know, nor does Geneva Free Ports and Warehouses, the company that pays the canton for the right to serve as the Freeport’s landlord. Swiss customs officials presumably know, but they aren’t talking. Suffice it to say, there is wide belief among art dealers, advisers and insurers that there is enough art tucked away here to create one of the world’s great museums. 

There are figures on the global art market, information about the expansion of freeports, in Geneva, construction has begun on "a new, 130,000-square-foot warehouse that will specialize in storing art. It is scheduled to open at the end of 2013". Luxembourg is "building a 215,000-square-foot freeport, scheduled to open in 2014 at its airport. In March, construction began on the Beijing Free Port of Culture at Beijing Capital International Airport". There has also been talk of doubling the size of the freeport in Singapore which "opened in 2010, next to Changi airport, and caters to Asian collectors who are ferried in white limos from the tarmac to the warehouse", suggesting that among the art collectors of the world are not just moral cripples. The article is worth a read.

David Segal, 'Swiss Freeports Are Home for a Growing Treasury of Art', New York Times July 21, 2012