Spain gets court help over booty of wreck

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.