The company exhibits artefacts that have been recovered from the wreck site at the bottom of the North Atlantic, from silverware to a piece of the Titanic’s hull.
“RMST is not free to disregard this validly enacted federal law, yet that is its stated intent,” US lawyers argued in court documents filed on Friday. They added that the shipwreck “will be deprived of the protections Congress granted it”. The Marconi room holds the ship’s radio — a Marconi wireless telegraph machine — which broadcast the Titanic’s increasingly frantic distress signals after the ocean liner hit an iceberg.
The company said it would “work collaboratively” with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US agency that represents the public’s interest in the wreck. But RMST said it does not intend to seek a permit.