A federal judge on Monday continued a ban on the auction of 100 artifacts salvaged from the Titanic shipwreck decades ago by a company authorized by the court to exhibit, but not sell, items it recovers from the ocean liner that sank in 1912.
Judge Rebecca Beach Smith of the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., ruled that she has jurisdiction over all the artifacts raised by R.M.S. Titanic Inc., an Atlanta-based company that has the exclusive salvage rights, and would continue to weigh whether any such sale should be allowed.
The company had challenged Judge Smith’s authority over the 1,800 artifacts it recovered during its first expedition to retrieve items from the ship in 1987. But in a 63-page opinion, the judge ruled that she has the power to enforce a 2011 agreement the company entered into with the court to keep together all the artifacts it has salvaged over the years.
R.M.S. Titanic has raised 5,500 fragile artifacts from the wreck site in seven expeditions, the last coming in 2004. The Norfolk court granted the company exclusive salvage rights in 1994 and has overseen the efforts ever since.
The company hopes to sell the 100 artifacts, including a bronze cherub statue from the ship’s grand staircase and a bell from its crow’s nest, to address what it has described as financial pressures.
The governments of the United States and France have registered opposition to the sale, as have 19 groups and individuals from the United States and Europe.
The company argued during a hearing in Norfolk earlier this month that the federal court there did not have jurisdiction over artifacts raised during the 1987 expedition, a joint French-American effort. In 1993, the company was awarded title to the artifacts recovered during that expedition by a French court after promising to never sell the items and never break up the collection. The artifacts were initially sent to France for conservation.
The company later brought those items to the United States and they are conserved alongside thousands of other objects from the ship in Atlanta. Many are also displayed in exhibitions around the world.
The company finances itself through the shows and has permanent displays in Las Vegas and Orlando, Fla., as well as five traveling exhibitions currently in Cleveland; Portland, Ore.; Germany; Poland and the Czech Republic. The company says 35 million people have attended its exhibitions.
A key point in the case is a set of covenants and conditions that R.M.S. Titanic agreed to in 2011, in exchange for Judge Smith granting the company title to all the artifacts salvaged after 1987. One condition states that the so-called American Artifacts — those raised after 1987 — “shall, to the maximum extent possible and consistent with reasonable collections management practices, be conserved and curated together with the French Titanic Artifact Collection as an integral whole.”
In Monday’s ruling, Judge Smith wrote that the proposed auction is “an apparent threat to the integrity of both the American and French collections.”
The judge ordered the company to file an inventory of all 5,500 artifacts, including when and where each was salvaged, where it is today and the “condition, integrity and status” of each one. She also ordered R.M.S. Titanic to file details of the company’s “continued financial viability to maintain the Titanic Collections under its obligations as trustee.”
As part of its auction plan, R.M.S. Titanic had filed with the court a list of the artifacts it wants to sell to collectors and museums.
In court papers, the company said it faces “financial difficulties and has experienced significant operating losses,” but did not specify why it was losing money or the amount of the losses. Judge Smith had questioned the severity of the financial issues earlier this month, noting that a part owner of the company is a subsidiary of Apollo Global Management Inc., “one of the largest private equity firms in the world, with billions of dollars of annual revenue and assets under management.”
Brian A. Wainger, a lawyer for the company, replied, “The company R.M.S.T. is in financial straits. Everything that we have told the court is absolutely true.”
Judge Smith said she may hold a hearing to determine if the proposed sale would be a breach of the company’s 2011 agreement, and if so, what remedy might be appropriate.
In response to the ruling, the company issued a written statement that emphasized how it has served as a “responsible steward of this historically important artifact collection,” and would deliberate over its next steps.
“The company recovered these artifacts at great peril,” the statement said, “stabilized them for posterity, conserved and exhibited them for decades, while presenting them to tens of millions of people around the world.”
The Titanic sank on its maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg on April 14, 1912, killing 1,500 passengers and crew members. The work of salvaging the wreck has been controversial, with critics calling it grave robbing. Supporters say it is a way of honoring the people who died by using the artifacts to tell their stories.
