Buried treasure often seems a fantasy that doesn’t exist outside of the movies but last week, Colombia announced an archaeological discovery beyond the imagination of any Hollywood writer. The Spanish galleon San Jose, which was sunk on June 8, 1708, has been discovered off the coast of Colombia. The vessel may contain as much as $17 billion in precious metals and gems. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is already hailing the wreck as a major discovery for Colombia but there have been conflicting claims over who should profit from the salvage. Take a moment to learn about the bounty of the San Jose, the ongoing legal scuffle, and who stands to benefit.

History of the San Jose

The War of Spanish Succession raged from 1701 to 1714, sweeping across Europe and sending a dozen kingdoms into turmoil. The conflict sparked proxy battles in colonial territories in the Caribbean and Latin America. The Spanish relied on jewels and precious metals from their colonies to fund some of their battles in Europe and the British Empire sent ships from its holdings in the Caribbean to attack Spanish vessels carrying these treasures back to the court.

On June 8, 1708, a battle which is now referred to as Wager’s Action broke out in the early evening. A squadron of British ships commanded by Charles Wager ran into a Spanish treasure armada led by Admiral Jose Fernandez de Santillan off the cost of what is now the city of Cartagena. Wager attacked the armada, hoping to seize the treasure, but during the battle the San Jose exploded, losing its cargo and almost the entire crew to the depths of the sea. It is unclear why the ship burst into flames, but now that the wreck has been discovered, archaeologists may be able to determine the source of the explosion. Wager was able to sink another ship in the fleet, the Santa Cruz, but the rest of ships escaped him and sailed on to Cartagena. The Spanish court history recorded the loss of the San Jose’s crew in its records:

Six hundred lives had been destroyed in an instant. Most of them either were vaporized in the explosion or went to the bottom of the Caribbean with the tons of precious metal which had been destined to finance the killing of thousands more on the battlefields of Europe

Competing Claims to the Treasure

President Santos is hailing the discovery as a Colombian success, but a group of American salvage investigators, who call themselves Sea Search Armada, have contested the president’s claim. Sea Search Armada (SSA) claimed that it first found the wreck in 1982 and the Colombian government is trying to cut them out of the profits. According to the Associated Press,

Two years later, Colombia’s government overturned well-established maritime law that gives 50 percent to whoever locates a shipwreck, slashing Sea Search’s take to a 5 percent ‘finder’s fee.’…A lawsuit by the American investors in a federal court in Washington was dismissed in 2011 and the ruling was affirmed on appeal two years later.

SSA claims that the Colombian government recognized how profitable recovering the wreck could be and purposefully changed the existing law to cut out the research team which found the wreck 700 feet below the surface in 1982. The group claims that the original research team from the Glocca Morra Company (contracted by SSA) struck a deal with the Colombian government to receive 35 percent of the treasures of the San Jose. Colombia has not delivered on this deal and SSA managed to win the right to a 50 percent share to any proceeds make off of the wreck in a Colombian court case. However, the government has denied SSA’s claim to the treasure since announcing its recovery last week. The Colombian government is already planning to build a museum dedicated to the San Jose in Cartagena, hoping to draw more tourists into the site of the wreck. The SSA could potentially benefit off of the museum and the treasure itself if it appeal its case in coming months.

The litigation between the Colombian government and SSA has been brewing for decades but this week  an unexpected claimant entered the contest: Spain. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Garcia-Margallo is obtaining more information on the wreck, hoping to build a case for returning it to its nation of origin. In a recent interview, Garcia-Margallo claimed that Spain wants to resolve any ownership conflict with Colombia in a peaceful manner but also stated that, according to a prior UNESCO convention, the wreck can be considered part of Spain’s national heritage and may fall under Spanish protection. President Santos has struck back at both American and Spanish claims, arguing that the wreck is part of Colombian national heritage and that the claimants throwing their hats into the ring have no right to the wreck. During a recent press conference, Minister of Culture Mariana Garcés discussed how the salvage of the ship was an effort organized and undertaken by Colombians. The three competing claims will most likely have to be processed in multiple courts, making it a truly international legal battle.

The Role of UNESCO

In 2009, the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage went into effect. According to UNESCO,

Underwater cultural heritage encompasses all traces of human existence that lie or have lain underwater and have a cultural or historical character. Over the course of earth’s history, entire cities have been swallowed by the waves, and thousands of ships have perished at sea. While these ships, structures and other cultural items are not frequently visible from the water’s surface, they have survived at the bottom of lakes, seas and oceans, safely preserved by the submarine environment.  Such heritage provide testimony to various periods and aspects of our shared history; for example, the cruelty of the slave trade, the ferocity of war, the impact of natural disasters, traces of sacred ceremonies and beliefs and the peaceful exchange and intercultural dialogue between disparate regions of the globe.

The 2009 act was designed to protect these underwater sites for generations, both from the ravages of the sea and from looters who steal artifacts and sell them for personal profit. UNESCO has been criticized for being vague in the definition of “cultural heritage” and for poorly defining the procedures for how artifacts should be retrieved and restored. Spain may manipulate those ambiguities in attempts to gain ownership of the wreck of the San Jose but Colombia is not a participating member of the 2009 treaty and therefore has no binding obligation to turn the ship over to Spain. The San Jose was built in Spain but Colombia now considers the wreck to be part of its national history.

This raises an interesting question for future wrecks that pit a former colonial power against a country they once exploited. The ship itself was Spanish but the treasure came from Colombian mines and was uncovered by Colombian laborers. Spain may have been using the treasure to finance its European endeavors, but did the treasure ever truly belong to Spain or was it stolen from Colombian indigenous tribes? With access to the treasures of the wreck, archaeologists may be able to determine who held original ownership of the gold and gems using markings in the gold and shipping records to retrace where they came from. Charles Beeker, Director of the Center for Underwater Science at Indiana University, argues that the wealth aboard the San Jose was taken during conquest and should be returned to the indigenous population.

Conclusion

President Santos has announced that the retrieval of the shipwreck will take years to complete, so neither Colombians nor Americans can expect to benefit off of the San Jose immediately. However, the wreck presents an interesting challenge for policymakers trying to determine ownership of archaeological sites. Should “finder’s fees” be the only reward for researchers who unearth major archaeological finds or should we cut them a bigger piece of the pie?  Do indigenous populations have a right to treasures that were stolen from them decades ago or should colonial powers retain the wealth they captured during the height of imperialism? Discoveries like the San Jose don’t turn up every day so the legal code on how to proceed when they do is far from clear. As the Colombian government enters the international legal quagmire to defend their claim to the wreck, archaeologists and treasure hunters around the world are waiting with bated breath to see who will win the prize.

Resources

Primary

UNESCO: The World’s Underwater Cultural Heritage

Additional

CNN: Colombia Says it Found Spanish Galleon; U.S. Firm Claims Half of Treasure

Facebook: Sea Search Armada

Encyclopedia Britannica: War of the Spanish Succession

Live Science: Sunken Treasure Ship Worth Billions Possibly Found After 300 Years

CBS News: “Holy Grail” of Shipwrecks Found off Colombia

BBC News: Spain Says it has Rights to Colombian Treasure Ship

The City Paper Bogoto: The ‘Rich’ History of the San José

Law of the Sea Institute: Ensuring the Preservation of Submerged Treasures for the Next Generation: The Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage in International Law

National Geographic: Treasure on Sunken Spanish Galleon Could Be Biggest Ever

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post The Wreck of the San Jose: Legal Battles Over Sunken Treasure appeared first on Law Street.

For those of you keeping track, Chris Brown has landed himself in legal trouble for at least the third time since his assault of then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009. This time the R&B singer found himself in court because of a recent performance he gave at the Fiesta Nightclub in San Jose, California. The terms of Brown’s probation require him to get permission before leaving Los Angeles County; however, he didn’t do that, and instead traveled over 300 miles outside of the county for the January 11 show.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James R. Brandlin revoked Brown’s probation yesterday in light of the unapproved travel, as well as the fact that Brown is still 200 hours short of completing the required community service component of his plea agreement. Probation revocation isn’t necessarily a go-directly-to-jail card; judges have several different options at their disposal in this type of situation, including requiring entry into some type of treatment program or adding additional time onto the length of probation, among other things. In Brown’s case, Brandlin is allowing the singer to remain free at least until March when another hearing in the matter is scheduled.

Brown’s attorney Mark Geragos–known for representing celebrity defendants, including Michael Jackson and notorious wife-killer Scott Peterson–claimed that Brown’s unauthorized travel was not in fact the singer’s fault, but rather that Geragos’ office provided him with bad information on this particular term of his probation.

Brown’s probation dates back to the infamous incident with Rihanna following the Grammys in 2009, when he choked, punched, and bit her. Since his arrest and subsequent plea agreement in that case, Brown has not stayed out of legal trouble. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault last year after being arrested for punching a man outside his Washington, DC hotel. He was sentenced to time already served after spending two days in jail; however, because he was already on probation for assaulting Rihanna he received 131 days in jail as a result of the new guilty plea. He was also ordered to enter rehab as a result of this incident, but he was kicked out for violating the center’s rules before finishing the four-month program. He was also charged in a hit-and-run incident in early 2013, but the charges were later dropped.

Chelsey D. Goff

Chelsey D. Goff was formerly Chief People Officer at Law Street. She is a Granite State Native who holds a Master of Public Policy in Urban Policy from the George Washington University. She’s passionate about social justice issues, politics — especially those in First in the Nation New Hampshire — and all things Bravo. Contact Chelsey at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Chris Brown is Back in Court…Again appeared first on Law Street.

Where is the line between independent contractor and employee? That was the question presented in the case of Coleman vs Pink Poodle Enterprises, where 11 former exotic dancers at the Pink Poodle strip club sued their former employer for failing to pay them minimum wage and overtime or provide them with benefits. The club is located in San Jose, California and has been owned and operated by the Kuzinich family for the past 57 years.

The club got around these provisions in the California Labor Code by classifying the dancers as “independent contractors”, rather than “employees”, despite the fact that dancers had regular work schedules, specific dress codes, and were required to attend employee meetings the way a typical “employee” would.  As independent contractors, the dancers were ineligible for benefits such as Medicare and Social Security. This is the main legal argument that the Kuzinich family is using to counter the dancers’ claims: they are independent contractors, and therefore minimum wage and benefit laws do not apply. This is certainly a stretch, since “independent contractors” are not bound by employer guidelines the way that these dancers were.

Not only were the dancers deprived benefits, but some of them were not even paid for their labor at all. Instead, they were required to pay the club for the opportunity to dance there. This is referred to by many club owners as a “house fee” that the dancers must pay in order to get time on stage, similar to the way that a hairstylist can rent out a chair at a salon. However, hair stylists who do this are usually not bound to salon schedules or meeting times the way that these dancers were.

This is an issue that is being raised in clubs across the country, and it is not the first time that dancers are fighting back against their employers. Another lawsuit, filed in 2013 by Felicia Harmon and others against Foxy Lady, Inc. and Arthur Dillard, raised the same employment issues as the dancers at the Pink Poodle. In addition, dancers at the Foxy Lady were forced to pay a “bar fee” so that they could choose to work any shift and were required to pay a fine if they showed up to work late. Now I don’t know about you, but the idea of paying my employer to work seems outrageous. Regardless of one’s personal opinion towards exotic dancing as a profession, labor is labor.

There is an upside to being labeled as an independent contractor–tips. Since the dancers are not given an hourly wage, they are able to keep all (or the majority) of the tips that they make from their dances. According to an exotic dancer who goes by the name Menagerii, this can be between $500 and $1500 on an average night. In fact, many of the dancers didn’t even realize that they were being taken advantage of because they walked away with a decent amount of cash each night.  However, while $1500 may seem like a lot, when the fee to dance at the club and the cost of medical care are taken into account that number drops fast.

The majority of past cases have ruled in favor of the dancers, rewarding them with settlements of millions of dollars. In 2012, another club in California settled a similar lawsuit for $12.9 million and a third lawsuit settled in 2013 required the Penthouse Executive Club to pay $8 million to its dancers in wages and overtime. While we don’t know explicitly how much compensation the dancers from the Pink Poodle are seeking, past precedent shows that the dancers are likely to be victorious and receive a large settlement.

Featured image courtesy of [401(K) 2012 via Flickr]

Brittany Alzfan

Brittany Alzfan is a student at the George Washington University majoring in Criminal Justice. She was a member of Law Street’s founding Law School Rankings team during the summer of 2014. Contact Brittany at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Exotic Dancers Sue Strip Club over Benefits and Wages appeared first on Law Street.