Liquor law veteran takes on art fraud

Dan Mossenson, one of WA’s foremost liquor licensing lawyers, turns his attention and skills to a different passion.

VETERAN liquor law expert and long-time art collector Dan Mossenson wants to combine his two passions to help stamp out art fraud in Australia.

With a legal career spanning well over four decades, Lavan Legal’s outgoing chairman of partners, Mr Mossenson has been a close student and practitioner of Western Australia’s liquor licensing laws since the late 1960s.

During this time he has also managed to become a successful art collector with his wife, Diane, and an accomplished squash player.

Mr Mossenson, who has witnessed big changes to the state’s liquor licensing regime, is now turning his considerable skills to the murky world of art fraud through a doctoral thesis with Melbourne University.

Mr Mossenson will start working on his thesis next year. He will also move to the position of emeritus partner at Lavan.

The change will see him working at the firm two to three days a week, as well as continuing as a mentor for the firm’s young lawyers.

Mr Mossenson says he still intends to keep a close eye on developments in the liquor licensing space but much of his time over the next few years will be spent working on his PhD in art fraud.

He hopes the thesis will frame some of the groundwork for legal reform in what he says is a very complex area of law.

He will draw on his more than 20 years’ experience in art collecting to investigate ways to reduce the complexity associated with prosecuting art fraud.

“I’ve got a great passion for collecting, and especially collecting art, and my wife and I have come to form many close relationships with the artists we’ve worked with,” Mr Mossenson says.

“Because of my legal and art gallery experience, as well as my involvement with artists and knowledge of fraudulent practices, we have tried in the past to assist the police in mounting cases to prosecute.

“It’s been a disappointment that the law is so complicated and the difficulty of proving one’s case is so hard, so that strikes me as a very interesting area to study.”

Through the Indigenart-Mossenson Galleries in Perth and Melbourne, the Mossensons have assisted many local artists who were experiencing hardship.

“My wife and I were initially exposed to an Aboriginal art gallery in Adelaide and we liked a lot of the things that were on sale, so when we returned to Perth we started dabbling a bit,” he says.

“We very quickly got motivated in looking for artists who were down on their luck or who were no longer painting.”

Mr Mossenson says he has observed the changing fortunes of the Aboriginal art world.

“When my wife and I first started operating, no one was operating dedicated and ongoing exhibitions of Aboriginal art,” he says.

“Over the years, Aboriginal art became increasingly popular, both here and internationally. At the same time it’s become more convoluted with sharp practices and over-production, and at the moment it’s in a sorry state.”

Mr Mossenson began his legal career as an articled clerk with Lavan and Walsh in 1968 and has remained at the firm through all of its transitions.

Since working on WA’s first tavern licence in 1973, he has gone on to start the WA Small Bar Association and has acted for many small-bar applicants since 2007.

He remembers one of the most significant liquor licensing reforms in WA’s history, the 1969 inquiry led by Phillip Adams QC.

“At that stage the 1911 Licensing Act was still operating, it was very much anachronistic and one of the major recommendations made was to introduce the concept of a tavern licence,” Mr Mossenson says.

“One of the intentions of the introduction of the tavern licence was it would allow for the establishment of more intimate and less capital-intensive spaces, particularly in the city.

“They wanted the major buildings in the CBD to have their own internal drinking places and that the local establishments in the suburbs would cease to be the large sprawling hotels that suburbia then knew.”

These ambitions were never fully realised - it wasn’t until 2007 when the concept of the large-scale local pub was seriously challenged with the introduction of small-bar licences.

“I found it quite amusing that although in 1969 that was one of the avowed intentions of all those reforms, it wasn’t until 2007 that politicians were saying ‘we’re going to change the drinking scene by achieving the notion of small, diverse and intimate drinking establishments,” he said.

The most important part of obtaining a licence today rests on proving to the Licensing Authority that the public interest warrants the grant of a licence to a new establishment.

“The complexities associated with licences these days are probably greater than they’ve ever been because of this notion of the public interest test, and the need to conduct an independent social impact study to evaluate what the likely effect of a new licenced establishment will be on the people in, and amenity of, the surrounding area,” Mr Mossenson says.

Mr Mossenson is a strong advocate for small bars but he does not support opposition leader Mark McGowan’s proposal to introduce a ‘microbar’ licence, which would allow a maximum of 60 people in the premises at one time.

“The existing small-bar licence can be as small or big, up to 120 people, as a licensee likes and a tavern licence can accommodate as many or as few people as the potential licensee wishes,” he says.