Battle Over Sunken Treasure Lands in D.C.’s Federal Court

Legal Times -

A Manassas, Va.-based solo practitioner is representing an underwater salvage company in a $17 billion federal lawsuit against the Republic of Colombia, alleging that the South American nation has illegally blocked its efforts to recover 300-year-old sunken treasure. The suit in Washington stems from a decades-long legal battle over the treasure that has already reached the Supreme Court of Colombia.

Sea Search Armada argues in its Dec. 7 complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia, that the Colombian government conspired against the company to come up with legal theories designed to back out of an agreement that allowed Sea Search to explore and recover coins and bullion from the Spanish galleon San Jose. The San Jose was sunk by the British Navy on June 8, 1708 during a naval battle off the coast of Colombia.

The 43-page complaint, filed by James DelSardo, who operates Argus Legal, reads like a buried-treasure novel.

Sea Search contends that in 1980, the Glora Morra Co. was granted permission to explore the Colombian Continental Shelf for shipwrecks by the Colombian agency that oversaw underwater explorations at the time. After locating the sites of what it believed were six separate shipwrecks, one of which is purported to be the San Jose, Glora Morra and Colombia began negotiating the terms of a contract that would divvy up the proceeds from any recovered artifacts or treasure. According to Glora Morra’s estimates, the treasure is likely worth between $4 billion and $17 billion today.

The parties eventually agreed that Glora Morra would receive 35% of the recovered treasures with Colombia receiving the rest, although Sea Search says it is actually entitled to 50% of the recovery.

The complaint alleges that after Glora Morra transferred its stake to Sea Search, an investment partnership set up to search for the remains of the San Jose, the Colombian government delayed signing the agreement in order to have more time to develop a legal theory that would reduce Sea Search’s share to 5%.

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