Spain makes court claim over sunken treasure

TAMPA, Fla. - 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.

In response, Odyssey Marine Exploration issued a statement noting that the Spanish government had not filed a lawsuit against the company itself. The claims merely informed the court that Spain did not intend to give up its rights to any Spanish property that might have been found, Odyssey said.

"Such a move was anticipated by Odyssey and is considered normal in Admiralty cases," John Morris, Odyssey's chief executive officer, said in the statement.

Previously, Odyssey has said that it would notify all claimants once it conclusively determined the identity of the ship, which has been code-named the "Black Swan." Experts on salvage law say the legal back-and-forth could continue for months.

Name, location of ship kept secret
The company announced two weeks ago that it had discovered the Black Swan wreck, containing 500,000 gold and silver coins, 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 previous shipwreck cases, 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.

This report includes information from The Associated Press and MSNBC.com.

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