The playground legal principle “Finders keepers, losers weepers” is being put to the test in an international dispute over what could be the richest sunken treasure yet found: 17 tons of silver coins brought up from an old shipwreck.
A Florida treasure-hunting company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, found the wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic and says that the age-old law of the high seas entitles the finder to most or all of the booty, said to be worth about $500 million.