RMS Titanic Faces Fierce US Government Opposition Over Secretive Four City Auction Plan For Ocean Relics

View of the bow of the RMS Titanic photographed in June 2004 by the ROV Hercules during an expedition returning to the shipwreck of the Titanic. (Credit: NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island NOAA/IFE/URI)

The company that holds exclusive salvage rights to the Titanic wants to auction more than 100 relics from the doomed liner for the first time, and the US government is fighting to stop it.

RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia-based salvor, has drawn up plans to sell artefacts and send them on a global tour through four cities it has refused to name publicly. Court documents that a federal judge ordered unsealed this month set out the proposal alongside Washington's objection, as the Associated Press first detailed on 22 June 2026.