May 31, 2007 8:40 am US/Central
Spain Sues Florida Firm For Shipwreck Treasure
TAMPA, Fla. (CBS) ―
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Odyssey Marine Exploration announced about two weeks ago it had found $500 million in colonial-era coins aboard a sunken ship. (File)
Odyssey Marine Exploration
The Spanish government has filed claims in U.S. federal court over a shipwreck that a Florida firm found laden with colonial-era treasure, an attorney said Thursday.
If the vessel was Spanish or was removed from that country's waters, any treasure would belong to Spain, said James Goold, an attorney representing the government.
"It's a very well established principle under Spanish, U.S. and international law that a government such as the kingdom of Spain has not abandoned its sunken ships or sunken property, and that a company like Odyssey Marine Exploration may not conduct recovery operations without authorization by the government," he said.
"The kingdom of Spain has not authorized any such operations by Odyssey, and by these legal actions it will see the return of any Spanish property Odyssey has recovered," Goold said of the claims filed Wednesday.
Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. co-founder Greg Stemm said Thursday the company was working on a statement in response to Spain's claims.
He has previously called Spain's legal threats "absurd" and said that Odyssey would notify all claimants once it conclusively determined the ship's identity.
The company announced two weeks ago that it had discovered a shipwreck containing 17 tons of colonial-era silver and gold coins worth an estimated $500 million somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. The Tampa-based company said the site was outside any country's territorial waters but would not give the exact location or name of the ship.
Odyssey has said that the ship was not in Spanish territorial waters and was not the HMS Sussex, a shipwreck that Odyssey recently got permission from the Spanish government to search for in the Strait of Gibraltar.
But Spain has called the new discovery suspicious and said the booty may have come from a wrecked Spanish galleon.
In Britain, the find generated press reports that Odyssey had salvaged the wreck of the long-sought British vessel Merchant Royal, which sank in bad weather off England in 1641. Odyssey has not confirmed or denied these reports.
Spain is using the U.S. law firm Covington & Burling, which has represented Spain in shipwreck cases before, including the recovery of material from two ships, Juno and La Galga, in a 2000 court case. The Spanish government won the case at that time.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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