Sunken Slave Ship Spat Goes to Trial Over Merger Looting Claims

Claims of plunder and corporate piracy over the management of artifacts from an 18th-century shipwreck go to trial Monday in Delaware’s Chancery Court.

The wreck is the Whydah Gally, a slave ship captured by pirate “Black Sam” Bellamy that sank in a 1717 storm off Cape Cod, Mass. The only fully authenticated wreck from the “golden age” of piracy, it was discovered by underwater explorer Barry Clifford in 1982.

Shareholder Paul Buddenhagen leads a lawsuit that paints Clifford and Robert Lazier, his late partner at Maritime Explorations Inc., as swashbucklers who breached their fiduciary duties for decades. The lawsuit ...