The Morges court ruled that a parker who discovered a treasure trove of more than 5,000 gold coins in Saint Brix, Switzerland, would eventually be able to hold only 19.
The man seized nearly half of the roughly 5,676 frenels (the Swiss currency) and Napoleon, estimated at C$1.77 million, that he discovered on private land in 2016, according to the French daily L’édition du soir.
However, after 5 years of legal fighting, the judge ruled in favor of the landowners.
That was because the young man who made the discovery was going to make many round trips to the property after finding the first pieces. He was only going to report to the authorities after he got 5,676 pieces.
During his travels, he hid what he found in various places before bringing it to the authorities two days later at Morges Police Station.
After the owners were informed of the find, they filed a complaint against the person who they believed had entered their land without permission.
The owner’s attorney, Me Jean-Philippe Heim, argued that the discovery constituted a theft.
For his part, the defense lawyer, Mr. Simon Perrod, considered that his client deserves his share of the stolen items because the owners were not aware of the documents.
But since the pieces belonged to one of the ancestors, the judge concluded that the find could no longer be considered a “treasure that no one possessed” and that “the potential gain of the finder was reduced from 50 to 10%”.
