De Beers Auction Sales launches pilot rough diamond selling service for diamond businesses

The De Beers Group of Companies announced that its Auction Sales business will launch a limited scope service pilot offering diamond businesses the opportunity to sell certain types of rough diamonds on its online auction platform. The service is available for single stones over five carats in weight or of fancy colour and will therefore represent a very small proportion of the diamonds sold on the De Beers Auction Sales platform (which offers around 10 per cent by value of the rough diamonds sold by The De Beers Group of Companies).

The service will only be available to those diamond businesses that adhere to the De Beers Auction Sales Rough Diamond Trading Standard.

The standard requires sellers to comply with a number of ethical criteria, including:

1. Seller Integrity: All sellers must accept the Registered Seller Declaration of Compliance, Integrity and Probity (which outlines the requirements for auction participation, Best Practice Principles acceptance and compliance with anti-corruption laws) % 2. The De Beers Auction Sales Source of Origin Provenance Claim: All rough diamonds must be accompanied by a legitimate Kimberley Process certificate and by invoices that: carry the WDC Warranty Declaration stating that the rough diamonds are conflict free; comply with the WFDB Charter stating that the rough diamonds are natural and untreated; carry an additional provenance claim stating that the rough diamonds comply with the De Beers Auction Sales’ Source of Origin requirements.

The Source of Origin provenance claim, made by each Seller, will be verified through either the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) or Best Practice Principles (BPP) Assurance Programme process. This provenance claim will be documented in the RJC certificate or BPP end of year compliance report.

3. Product Disclosure: All rough diamonds offered for sale on the platform must undergo a comprehensive three-level screening process to identify synthetic and/or treated rough diamonds.

The additional requirements on integrity, rough diamond provenance and product disclosure are intended to boost buyer confidence.

The service will offer eligible diamond businesses a new route to market and enable them to benefit from De Beers Auction Sales’ expertise, technology and distribution network.

Neil Ventura, Executive Vice President, De Beers Auction Sales, said: “While this pilot will only represent a very limited amount of what is sold on our platform, it gives us the opportunity to test the strength of demand for such a service. This is a further example of our approach to innovation as a business, and how we seek to respond to and explore emerging opportunities.” He further noted that, “Meanwhile, by introducing these rigorous criteria for sellers, we hope that trading standards across the industry will continue to be elevated: only eligible diamond businesses will have the opportunity to benefit from selling their high value stones through our innovative and well-established model.”

Andrew Bone, Executive Director of the Responsible Jewellery Council, said, “We welcome the introduction of this selling standard and see it as a positive step. It will not only encourage more businesses in the diamond sector to adopt more robust standards when carrying out their trading activities, but also ensure more companies provide evidence of their business integrity through third party assurance.”

The new Rough Diamond Trading Standard can be found at the De Beers Auction Sales website.