Legal Fight Looms Over Sunken Treasure

BBC ^ | 1-7-2002

[blam]

Tuesday, 7 January, 2003, 14:48 GMT

Legal fight looms over sunken treasure

An international row is brewing between the Spanish Government and an American sea salvage company over what could be the most valuable shipwreck ever. The salvage firm Sub Sea Research believes it has found what remains of the 64-cannon French ship, Notre Dame de Deliverance, which sank in a fierce storm 60 kilometres (40 miles) off Florida's Key West in 1755. It was one of the richest ships ever lost

The merchant vessel was chartered by Spain to carry treasures extracted from mines in Mexico, Peru and Colombia.

Its cargo of gold bullion, gems, coins and silver is worth an estimated $3bn.

Legal fight

Now Sub Sea Research has to answer the claims to the wreck by Spain and France.

The Spanish position refers to the terms of a 1902 treaty with the US based on the fact that the shipwreck could contain the remains of the Spanish soldiers.

250 sunken Spanish galleons hold billions in treasure

The claim is also likely to note that the cargo belonged to the Spanish Government.

"They've cast a blanket over this thing before anybody really knows that it is the Deliverance," Guy Burnette, the salvage company's lawyer said.

"We think it is. We have good reason to believe it is."

Sunken treasure

The Sub Sea Research has produced an incomplete inventory of what was believed to be on board of the Notre Dame de Deliverance when it left the Cuban port of Havana.

The cargo included:

437 kilogram of gold bullion in 17 chests, more than 15,000 gold coins 153 golden snuff boxes six chests of gems more than 1,000,000 silver pieces 14 kg of sliver ore six pairs of diamond earrings a diamond ring "It was one of the richest ships ever lost," one of the owners of the company, Greg Brooks, told the Miami Daily Business Review.

The Deliverance's glimmering cargo is approximately 10 times larger than that found in 2000 on the galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, from which about $400m in treasure was retrieved.

Further claims

A Florida district judge has granted the Sub Sea Research permission to make its claim to the shipwreck.

But the US State Department said the company needed Spain's permission to recover the treasure.

The claim to the Deliverance is further complicated by the fact that the ship belonged to the French West Indies company.

Its crew was French and the wreck could be claimed as France's property.

Sub Sea Research claims that the French company is long defunct and there is no legal owner.

The company's divers say the 50.5-metre-long wooden ship has split into two parts, and the wreck is thought to be spread over 20-square-kilometre (eight-sq-mile) area.

About 250 Spanish ships which sunk in the 17th and 18th centuries are thought to have taken with them treasure worth billions of dollars.

[LibWhacker]

Finders keepers.

[Hodar]

Interesting .... kidnap and molest children; and if you get away with it for 7 years, no crime was committed.

If a ship sinks in unknown waters 250 years ago, the country may still exercise a claim to it. With that logic, I would hope the Aztec and Inca tribe would sue Spain for the gold that was stolen from them, plus interest. Chances are nearly 100% that this was forcibly taken from them to start with.

[VOA]

The Deliverance's glimmering cargo is approximately 10 times larger than that found
in 2000 on the galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, from which about $400m
in treasure was retrieved.

To quote Andrew "Dice" Clay:
"IN-FREAKIN'-CREDIBLE!!!"

[Fudd]

My first thoughts were of the USS Central America, which sunk off the coast of NC with a, well, boatload of gold. The final court ruling (in a U.S. court) was that the insurance companies that had covered the shipment had ~140 years to try to find the gold. The Columbus America Discovery Group had taken all the risks in recovering the treasure, so the court rewarded them 96-97% of the insured cargo, plus 100% of the uninsured cargo, as salvage rights. It left the lawyers of the insurance agencies to prove their claims.

I suppose it could be argued that the Spanish government of 2003 is not the same entity that existed when this ship sank, and thus has no claim on the wreck. But I thought there was a well-established nautical law that governed salvage rights (in international waters), which in this case would establish a finder's fee as a percentage of the salvage value.

[ninonitti]

Can you say reparations?

[xrp]

Not only that was the gold and silver taken from the Aztecs, Incas, etc of the Americas, but also the Aztecs and Incas, etc themselves were the slave labour that extracted the precious metals. Certainly there is room to through a reparations lawsuit in there.

[Sacajaweau]

Finders Keepers works for me.

[hchutch]

I'd agree. Heck, the Navy lost a case over a TBD back in `99.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9907/09/sunken.plane.dispute/

[Poohbah]

Notice that this hasn't reached the appellate courts yet. (Admiralty disputes often end up with the GRANDCHILDREN of the disputants settling the damn case.)

[hchutch]

I ran a google search, and found some updates...

http://waterfront-news.com/archive/01/march/salvage/salvage.htm

Apparently the 11th overturned the District ruling and SCOTUS declined to hear. The case WAS sent back to determine what the guy involved with the TBD was owed.

Pretty stupid, IMHO. Serious lack of common sense. I just hope they can save that TBD from rusting into oblivion.