less of such requests and today's decision makes a strong statement about their chances, he said. The dispute goes back to 2007, when Odyssey announced it had found a 19th-century sunken ship off of Spain. The company claimed ownership of the coins and said it had flown them to a guarded location in the United States. Spain filed suit in a federal court in Tampa, Florida, also claiming the treasure. Spain says its navy warship Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes was carrying the coins. The 34-gun frigate left Peru in 1804 and crossed the Atlantic to within a day's sail from Spain when British ships attacked the Spanish fleet. In the ensuing Battle of Cape St. Mary, south of Portugal, the Mercedes was hit in its powder magazine and exploded, according to the Spanish government's filing to the Florida court. In 2009, the federal court in Tampa ruled in favor of Spain and the federal appeals court in Atlanta upheld the ruling last September. Last week, the appeals court denied an Odyssey motion, which Odyssey appealed to the Supreme Court. The appeals court is expected to send the case back to the court in Tampa, which would establish and supervise the procedures for sending the coins to Spain, Goold said last week. Spain believes that most of the nearly 600,000 coins are currently in Florida, Goold said. Spain's Culture Minister, Jose Ignacio Wert, told CNN in Madrid on Wednesday