Auction bosses charged re alleged price-fixing

The former bosses of the world’s two largest auctioneers were yesterday formally charged with organising an ‘‘international conspiracy’’ to rig commissions.

Alfred Taubman, former chairman of Sotheby’s and Sir Anthony Tennant, ex-chairman of Christie’s, were formally indicted by a grand jury in New York, charged with conspiring to fix auction commission prices in the United States and elsewhere between 1993 and 1999.