Company requests money for salvaging Titanic artifacts

[trekz 7]

Company requests money for salvaging Titanic artifacts

NORFOLK, Va. , Titanic Salvage

Dec. 18, 2007 12:59 PM AP

NORFOLK, Va. (Map, News) - The company that has recovered more than 5,000 artifacts from the Titanic wants a federal judge to award it $100 million to pay the costs of salvaging and maintaining most of the pieces.

 

U.S. District Judge Rebecca B. Smith ordered federal prosecutors in October to keep a close eye on the firm, RMS Titanic, Inc., to ensure that the artifacts from the sunken ocean liner are preserved "as an international treasure for posterity."

 

Smith ruled that the company is not entitled to keep the 3,700 artifacts from the 1912 shipwreck, but can preserve them.

 

She criticized RMS Titanic for claiming it owns certain artifacts through an agreement it reached with a London company that had insured personal property aboard the voyage.

 

Smith called that agreement "devoid of any legal or factual merit," and said the company's claim is "blatantly misleading to the public and the investors" of RMS Titanic.

 

The company filed subsequent papers in the court explaining to Smith that it was not engaging in misconduct and had no "intention to further annoy the court." But the company acknowledges that the judge "obviously disagrees" with its legal analysis.

 

The French government decreed that RMS Titanic does own the remaining 1,800 artifacts it recovered from salvaging operations that began in 1987.

 

Arnie Geller, president and chief executive officer of RMS Titanic, said he wants the artifacts kept together or split into no more than two locations. He said company is negotiating with the cities of New York and Belfast, Northern Ireland - as well as the Mariners' Museum in Newport News - to house the collection.

 

Geller said preserving the artifacts is more important than profiting from them.

 

"At some point it becomes a labor of love," he told The Virginian-Pilot. "It's more than the money at this point."

 

The company, which became a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions Inc. in 2004, filed a motion recently for what's known as a "salvage award," which means the court will decide how much the firm is owed for retrieving the artifacts from the ocean floor and preserving them.

 

RMS Titanic says it should be paid at least 90 percent of the market value for the artifacts, estimated to be worth $110 million. The problem is how to pay the company. Geller said no museum could afford the cost.

 

Smith has denied the company's requests to sell the artifacts, which are kept in Atlanta.

 

The company has earned money exhibiting the artifacts at museums around the world but says it has lost $7.7 million overall when balanced with the expense of the six salvage expeditions since 1993.

---END ARTICLE

Information from: The Virginian-Pilot, http://www.pilotonline.com

 

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

 

Maybe this should be in the Titanic thread. Very interesting.

[Kor37 9]

The RMS Titanic company are scumbags. They won the salvage rights back in the 1980s and have been raping and pillaging the Titanic for years. If you look at photos of the wreck when Dr. Ballard discovered it and photos of it today, you would cry. This company has stripped the wreck of anything identifiable as the Titanic. Thier blundering has also further damaged the wreck. They even stole the plaque that Dr. Ballard placed on the bow of the Titanic when he discovered it! Their claim to money is frivilous to say the least. It makes no sense for them to continue to go to the Titanic because there is literally nothing left to salvage. They have made tons of money exhibiting the artifacts around the world since they began. Just because they haven't broke even yet doesn't mean they never will. If they continue exhibiting the artifacts, they will eventually break even and then everything after that will be pure profit.

The only thing they are allowed to sell from the Titanic is pieces of the tons of coal from the ship. I have to admit, I bought a piece of coal from the Titanic. The Titanic Historical Society is adamantly opposed to this company and to any salvaging from the Titanic. Their opinion is that the wreck should be treated as a gravesite and left alone.