[davidjay]

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/25381 ... hire/votes

Mike Alpha Charlie

I was about to say similar then I read the above for the fifteenth time and finally realised.

[Youngian]

Does Mr Huddleston have a large BTL portfolio by any chance?

[Yug]

What a shame

The joint owner of GB News has lost a legal battle with the South African government over £34m of silver secretly salvaged from a second world war shipwreck.

Paul Marshall, who is lining up a bid for the Daily Telegraph, had claimed ownership of 2,364 silver bars his company had recovered from the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

This claim was successfully challenged in the UK supreme court by the South African government, which said it was the rightful owner of the silver as the metal had been bought for the South African mint...

https://amp.theguardian.com/science/art ... ged-silver

... Argentum is among many businesses owned by Marshall, one of the UK’s most successful financiers, who uses his personal funds to finance media outlets including Unherd and GB News. The right-wing news channel made a loss of £42m last year – slightly more than the value of the salvaged silver – and announced redundancies.

The wreck of the SS Tilawa was found 2.5km under the sea and in 2017 Argentum spent six months secretly salvaging the silver, before sailing its booty to Southampton. The company unloaded the silver into a warehouse and declared it to the official Receiver of Wreck, believing it was legally owned by the UK government, only to be surprised when South Africa asserted ownership.

Argentum later argued that even if South Africa was the rightful owner, it should be paid for recovering the silver. Under maritime law, it is possible to claim a fee for voluntary salvage regardless of whether the owner of the property consented to the salvage operation.. .

... Jonathan Goulding, of the law firm HFW, who advised the South African government, said the ruling was significant: “In short, the court has firmly sent a message to those hoping to find and claim ownership of lost treasure that finders are not always keepers.”

It wasn't even enough to cover GBeebies' losses last year. And now he's made next to nothing out of the whole thing. My heart bleeds for him.

[Andy McDandy]

Marshall, Banks, Musk...seems to be that southern Africa/precious metals and jewels tends to be an arsehole magnet.

See also Nicholas van Hoogstraten, Lonrho, Tiny Rowland, Rio Tinto Zinc, Denis Thatcher etc.

[Bones McCoy]

So ... a pirate and a graverobber.

I recall the Gammon losing their shit (and for once I agreed) on learning about shipwrecks being "salvaged in the Java Sea.