For over 10 years the plaintiff had functioned as the exclusive salvor-in-possession of the wreck of the Titanic which lay in international waters. On 12 February 2004 the plaintiff filed a motion requesting that the district court enter an order awarding it “title to all the artifacts (including portions of the hull) which are the subject of this action pursuant to the law of finds” or, in the alternative, a salvage award in the amount of US$225 million. The plaintiff claimed that since the cost of salvage had exceeded the value of artifacts recovered from the Titanic , the artifacts should be granted to the plaintiff as an in specie salvage award. The plaintiff excluded from its motion any claim for an award of title to the 1800 artifacts retrieved from the Titanic in 1987 and taken to France, asserting that a French administrative agency had already awarded it title to those artifacts. But it did request that the district court declare that, based on the French administrative action, “the artifacts raised during the 1987 expedition are independently owned by [the plaintiff]”.