LIMA, Peru: Peruvian consumer rights advocates urged Peru’s government Monday to claim some US$500 million in gold and silver coins found in a sunken galleon off the coast of Spain last year.

Some 17 tons (15.4 metric tons) of coins were discovered by a Tampa, Fla.-based treasure-hunting company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, when it raised a shipwreck west of the Straits of Gibraltar in May 2007.

Spain’s government also claims ownership of the wreck and its contents — and has sued Odyssey, which hauled away the treasure.

But the Association of Peruvian Consumers and Users said the South American nation also has a right to the booty, since it believes the coins were made with Peruvian metals and minted in Lima.

“This gold was stolen from the Incas,” said Jaime Delgado, the consumer group’s president.

A spokeswoman for Peru’s National Institute of Culture said the government could take legal action if its own research finds the coins are of Peruvian origin.

But David Avellar Neblett, a maritime lawyer in Florida, said Spain’s claim would still likely override Peru’s because legal precedent establishes that warships and other state vessels — and their cargo — remain national property after submerged.

Lawyers for Odyssey and Spain’s government told a federal magistrate judge in Tampa on Monday that they are still exchanging information, which means that the case may not go to trial until next year.

The galleon is thought to have been sunk in a naval battle with Britain off the coast of Portugal in 1804.

MADRID, Spain: Spain laid formal claim Thursday to a shipwreck that yielded US$500 million (€324 million) in treasure, saying it has proof the vessel is Spanish and demanding that a U.S. deep-sea exploration firm that recovered the booty give it all back.

Culture Ministry officials said the 19th-century shipwreck at the heart of a year-old dispute with Odyssey Marine Exploration is the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes — a Spanish warship sunk by the British navy southwest of Portugal in 1804 with more than 200 people on board.

The Spanish government filed evidence Thursday backing up its claim with a U.S. federal judge hearing the case in Tampa, Florida, where Odyssey is based.
Washington-based lawyer James Goold, who represents the Spanish government in the case, said U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo would now convene the two parties to review the case before deciding who gets to keep the treasure.

“It is the property of the Spanish navy, government and people, and we want it all back,” said Admiral Teodoro de Leste Contreras, who runs a naval museum owned by the ministry.

Goold said at a news conference in Madrid that he expected Odyssey would keep “not a penny” of the salvage.

Spain argues the entire treasure should be returned because naval vessels never cease to be the property of the nation that flagged them, regardless of where they lay, under the principle of sovereign immunity, Goold said.

“Spain has not abandoned or otherwise relinquished in any way its ownership of Mercedes,” Spain argued in Thursday’s court filing.

Odyssey said it would issue a statement after reviewing Spain’s claim and the file provided Thursday to the U.S. court. But company officials has said in the past they believed the court would award them most of the treasure, as they had found it. (more…)

LONDON: Investment money flooding into silver has overwhelmed poor fundamentals and helped it to outperform gold, but the tide could be turning for precious metals and the probability of large losses is rising.

Silver’s price declines in percentage terms is likely to dwarf those seen in gold, which some fund managers say has stronger supply-demand fundamentals.

“History shows that when you get a substantial correction in precious metals, silver falls more than gold,” said Stephen Briggs, an analyst at Société Générale. “It’s a more volatile market and smaller in value terms.”

One big reason behind soaring metals prices has been the tumbling dollar, making commodities priced in dollars less expensive for holders of other currencies. The weak dollar also prompts producers to raise prices to protect profit margins.

Last week the dollar fell to a record low against the euro - with the euro rising beyond $1.60, an event that has caused many investors to question whether the dollar’s declines will continue, or if it has reached a bottom.

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