FIRST OFF . . .

A dispute over profits led a group of French and Florida investors who financed the salvage of the Titanic to file suit to block a televised opening of one of the ship’s safes. Filed in U.S. District Court in Tampa, the suit asks for upwards of $300 million in damages and a court order to block Westgate Productions’ live syndicated safecracking broadcast scheduled for next Wednesday on KTLA-TV Channel 5. Investor-financier and Swiss watch heir Carlos Piaget, the suit alleges, conspired with two men to transfer stock in the British company that financed the French expedition to a limited partnership formed last July in Connecticut called Titanic Ventures. The plan, according to the suit, was to transfer the original investors’ share in the venture to the new partnership, which now claims sole rights to artifacts salvaged from the Titanic. The Titanic, once considered unsinkable, is believed to have struck an iceberg April 15, 1912, sinking off the coast of Newfoundland with more than 1,500 people on board.