At the moment, Spain has all the right in the world (Spain as a sovereign country can make their own laws on international waters, More significantly the UK could also do if they want to) as OMR has not proved anything other than they picked up a pile of stuff off the sea bed that they do not own and are not willing to give much detail about. All this bullXXXX regarding there correct procedure is exactly that.
They either do not know what ship it is, which is unlikely in this case, or they are unwilling to release the name of the ship as they would then not be in control any more, and would have to deal with the real owners, a good move on their part so far I guess, but sooner or later they will have to come to the party in order to get anything at all.
OMR are trying to write the norm into their PR for instance, 90% for the salvor is total rubbish just put in by them to make their case. Each case is on its own and not the norm, there is no norm. ( I have filed many salvage claims over the years, granted not on treasure ships but the law is basically the same, some you get lots of money for, others you just get paid). (you can see just 2 of the jobs I was involved with in the Salvage thread on the child board attached to the forum, one of them one of the American P3 Orion that crashed in Oman ( the contract value was $750,000.00 to pick it up and deliver it to the dock intact, of course in this case I knew who owned it). If you need more, I have years of it, many photos and a ton of bills from specialist marine lawyers in this field, so I get annoyed when people who should know better start saying that the norm is this , there is no norm in salvage).
But you do have to see who owns it. Just because it has been on the seabed for a few hundred years does not mean it was abandoned. There was no method of recovery at that depth until just a few years ago in reality. So abandonment will be difficult to prove in court. If your ship sinks in channel and you do not remove it then it will be removed for you at your cost, you can of course abandon it (not so easy these days) but that is a procedure and the same applys for a deep water wreck.
If you drop your gold chain the ocean at the marina, its still yours, its just on the sea bed until the local maintenance diver who picks it up. Of course he will normally keep it or sell it, but lawfully its still yours and if you find out it has been found then you can claim it back, it is not finders keepers.
This is game played by lawyers and specialists in this field. I for one would not like to play it with Governments. OMR have shown their hand on this one and have ignored their partners UK Government and Spain on what was supposed to be the richest ship wreck in their view the "HMS SUSSEX" in their view. If they had chose to liaise with the two governments on this find, and both government found they were in the clear then the investors would be picking up a huge pay day already, and the "Sussex" program would be awaiting its destiny.
But they have chosen a court case to gain what they have found (possession is 90% of the law, again bullXXX).
This is against what the "pro OMR" guys bought into, which was the "Sussex project". ( it is very unlikely OMR will have to prove they found the Sussex now, let alone that she actually contained any treasure in the first place).
The really sad thing is that salvage of deep water treasure or any treasure for that matter will be seriously affected for the future, OMR"s method has caused serious damage to the salvage world in general, do not expect an easy time when you are negotiating with a government after this. I am already feeling the difference on a UK wreck I have been working on for some time.
So all you guys who have made a small amount of cash from the stock, good luck to you thats investing on the stock market, personaly I like microsoft and the like but each to his own.
But this board is about treasure hunting and OMR have just made it a lot harder for us by their clandestine measures, implanted norms which do not exist. Its so sad, as had they done this right with this absolutely fantastic find of theirs, they could have come out on top, but greed has won their battle at our cost, and maybe in the long run their's to.
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