The R&M “Lettre”

Source: Richemont

Seven years after its introduction sent shock waves through the industry, De Beers is closing the Lightbox lab-grown diamond business. As part of the closure process, De Beers will sell certain assets, including inventory. At press time, Lightbox’s site was still up, but De Beers CEO Al Cook tells JCK it will cease functioning within the coming months. At JCK Las […]

The World Diamond Council (WDC), the U.S. based organization representing the international natural diamond value chain, acknowledges the U.S. Government’s emphasis on fair and reciprocal trade and advocates for policies that support strengthening American manufacturing to deliver tangible benefits to U.S. businesses, workers and consumers. • More than 200,000 U.S. jobs in jeopardy • Industry […]

The European Union will not include polished diamonds in the countermeasure package it has put together in response to the new US reciprocal tariffs.  The move would have caused “significant harm” to Belgium’s diamond industry, without “meaningfully impacting” the US in return, the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) said Wednesday.   “We are extremely pleased and […]

Francois Curiel has spent 55 years on the auction block, selling the world’s rarest natural diamonds. When you ask Francois Curiel, one of the leading auctioneers of our time, if he still feels a thrill stepping on the block for Christie’s diamond auctions after 55 years in the game, he answers with a knowing smile. […]

The World Diamond Council is devoting the sixth article of its “Diamond Empowerment” series to the diamonds of Canada. “Diamond Empowerment” is a series of in-depth, well-researched case studies analyzing the contribution that the diamond mining industry makes to sustainable development in the countries where it is present. The discovery of diamonds in Canada’s Northwest […]

The outgoing year was clearly a particularly challenging one. It required diamond industry companies to reconsider their future and created an opportunity to pivot towards reinventing diamonds as a true luxury item. The coming year should be the year of realignment. in 2024, the diamond industry, from producing countries to retailers, was rattled in 2024. […]

De Beers has stripped around 10 sightholders of their rough-diamond allocations for 2025 and is planning to offer fewer goods overall, market insiders told Rapaport News on Sunday.  Those companies will retain their sightholder status, but the miner will not give them a consistent allotment of supply because they did not buy enough in 2024, the sources […]

Botswana’s outgoing President Mokgweetsi Masisi made quite an impression when he was introduced to the diamond industry at the 2019 JCK Las Vegas show.  Just one year in office, the well-spoken leader proved to be an eloquent and powerful advocate for natural diamonds. He told the American audience about the impact their industry has on […]

Speaking at the conclusion of the 2024 Kimberley Process (KP) Plenary, World Diamond Council (WDC) President Feriel Zerouki commended significant advancements in the KP’s modernization efforts. Driven by the WDC’s commitment to improving transparency and traceability in the diamond trade, at this year’s Plenary session the UAE showcased its pilot for QR-coded secure digital certificates. […]

At the JCK Show, I was with a group of people who work with lab-grown who were upset that a certain lab was supposedly lax in its lab-grown grading. “It doesn’t matter,” one said. “It’s only lab-grown.” I’ve complained in the past that some people in the lab-grown world sometimes devalue their product, and that’s […]

Industry players have found ways to cope with market conditions while working to reshape themselves in the face of emerging realities. Mumbai, India—The Indian diamond industry enters the fourth quarter having been on a roller coaster ride for much of the last two years.   There have been multiple twists and turns, and ups and […]