Waiting
the Panel ... (12/08/02) (source
: Stuff.co.nz)
"I would hope they have a decision before the
start of the racing" said Bruno Troublé, the
man who runs the Louis Vuitton media centre in Auckland.
But there has been no decision yet from the Arbitration
Panel on the case brought against OneWorld by Prada
and Team Dennis Conner.
The Arbitration Panel held a marathon hearing over the
weekend and late into the night last night. They resumed
hearing evidence and it was hoped they would have a
decision today.
The three overseas members of the panel are due to leave
New Zealand this afternoon, and it is not clear if they
will have had enough time to consider the case by then.
During the weekend hearing, OneWorld admitted they had
broken Cup rules by holding Team New Zealand design
data, but appealed to the panel not to punish them too
harshly.
In a absence of a decision from the Arbitration Panel
or the International Jury, the Race Committee intends
to starts the semifinals as scheduled with four current
semifinalists.
This means Oracle BMW Racing and Alinghi will cross
the strating line first. Prada and OneWorld will follow
ten minutes later.
Robert Parry, a United States naval architect who
has compared OneWorld hull designs and those of Team
New Zealand's from the last America's Cup says the drawings
are not of the same boat.
He says the eight line drawings produced for OneWorld
by former Team New Zealand principal designer Laurie
Davidson do not match NZL60.
"It was clear that no boat in the package was identical
to NZL60," Perry said in an affidavit. He said the one
Davidson drawing closest to NZL60 was still "a very
different boat" in almost every respect.
Perry, from Seattle, and colleague Ben Souquet were
asked by OneWorld to compare the Davidson design package
with the NZL60 lines made available by Team New Zealand
designers Mike Drummond and Tom Schnackenberg.
The two sets of drawings were of a different scale,
and the lines of NZL60 were replotted to match the Davidson
scale. Perry and Souquet selected the hull drawing closest
to that of NZL60 and compared the two.
"The hull shape that came the closest to NZL60 was 'standard
number three'. We focused on this hull to determine
the differences and similarities with NZL60," Perry's
affidavit said. "In almost every respect, standard number
three was a very different boat to NZL60."
The sworn affidavit will be presented by OneWorld Challenge
to the America's Cup arbitration panel tomorrow when
it hears claims that the Seattle syndicate used other
teams' secret design information.
A decision on OneWorld's future is expected on Sunday
night or Monday.
On
the front lines of the legal war (12/04/02) (sources
: LV
Cup&
NZ
Herald)
OneWorld Challenge has agreed to allow Sean Reeves
to testify at the special hearing of the America’s Cup
Arbitration Panel being convened in Auckland this weekend,
despite a restraining order from the US courts.
Syndicate spokesman Bob Ratliffe confirmed today that
an undertaking had been given that Reeves could participate
at the Panel hearings without fear of being pursued
in the courts by OneWorld Challenge.
"In fact, we want Reeves to testify at the hearing,"
Ratliffe said today. "We want to give him the freedom
for those two days to answer questions and give testimony,
but obviously that has to be within the proper scope
of the enquiry."
An affidavit from Reeves will provide much of the evidence
at this weekend's hearing, although it is not known
what material or witnesses syndicates will offer to
support his claims.
Meanwhile, Team New Zealand members will take time off
to give evidence at this weekend's critical Arbitration
Panel hearing into claims OneWorld used other syndicates'
America's Cup design secrets.
Team New Zealand members swore affidavits for that hearing,
but are not providing new written evidence this week.
Instead they have told the five-member panel that key
designers, senior management and others are available
to be questioned or give evidence if required.
They will also supply any design information which might
be needed by technical director Ken McAlpine. He may
be asked to compare lines drawings for Team New Zealand's
winning boat from the last cup, NZL60, and OneWorld's
early design plans for this campaign.
The hearing has been set down for Saturday and Sunday.
Racing in the Louis Vuitton is set to resume on Monday
with OneWorld set to meet Prada and Alinghi set to meet
Oracle BMW Racing in the semi-finals.
OneWorld
case is now scheduled (12/03/02) (source
: LV
Cup)
The America’s Cup Arbitration Panel has now issued
directions for the OneWorld hearing after the joint
submission by Prada and Team Dennis Conner.
On Wednesday, 4th December, the two New Zealand members
of the Panel will conduct a meeting to decide procedural
matters ahead of the main December 7th hearing.
Wednesday’s session will determine, among other things,
whether the hearing will be open to the media and also
whether parties at the hearing wish to cross examine
witnesses.
It is understood that Team New Zealand has agreed to
allow team members to testify at the hearing if required,
and will make available relevant documents (on June
9, Reeves did furnish Team NZ with a detailed affidavit,
but by then the OneWorld case was closed) and designs,
provided the Arbitration Panel guarantees their confidentiality
will be protected.
Further, Team Dennis Conner and Prada have each been
ordered to put up US$ 20 000 as a security against costs
for the hearing.
The main hearing is scheduled on 7th December.
Urgent
meeting of the Arbitration Panel (11/28/02) (source
: NZ
Herald)
An urgent meeting of the America's Cup's most
important judicial body has been called to try to limit
damage caused by bitter accusations that OneWorld used
other teams' design secrets.
Team Dennis Conner and Prada have asked the America's
Cup Arbitration Panel to throw OneWorld Challenge out
of the event, claiming multiple gross violations of
cup rules. OneWorld have denied they used the secrets
of other syndicates, including Team NZ and Prada.
The panel will now hold an urgent meeting next week
to hear evidence on the claims. It had not been expected
to meet until early next year.
The New Zealand said the meeting was fast-tracked because
of acute concerns that the reputation of the regatta
was being tarnished by the off-the-water legal wrangling.
There is also confusion about the status of the challenger
series if OneWorld continue to sail, and eliminate competitors,
only to be penalised or disqualified later. That could
invalidate earlier results, throwing the event into
disarray.
While three of the panel live in New Zealand or Australia,
the other two are Europeans. They have agreed to fly
here for a two-day hearing beginning on December 7.
The international jury will now not hear a separate
protest against OneWorld until after the panel meets.
The
Seattle Times point of view (11/27/02) (sources
: Seattle
Times)
Following are an excerpt from a very good column
written by Ron Judd in the Seattle Times.
From the very beginning, when Craig McCaw sauntered
into the America's Cup saloon hoping to class up the
joint a bit, he should have paid more attention to the
desperados lurking in the shadows.
The mud flying from the corners early on was no surprise.
But even at this late date, two opponents are desperately
struggling to reopen the slime valves by revisiting
the tired, already adjudicated charges of OneWorld's
"cheating" by possessing other team's design "secrets."
The biggest hand on the spigot belongs to Team DC. Laughably,
Conner paints his most recent court action as a valiant
effort by the New York Yacht Club — the "longest-standing
trustee of the America's Cup" — to preserve the integrity
of the event.
That's especially rich, coming from a bunch of East
Coasties best known for a century-plus of manipulating
rules to keep the trophy on their own shelves. Talk
about your pot bellies calling the kettle black.
Next in the accuser's line: Italy's Prada, crowd favorites
in New Zealand for capitulating so quickly in the last
America's Cup that the Kiwis barely had to get their
boats wet.
The Luna Rossa boys, another potential OneWorld quarterfinals
victim in the coming weeks, have spent much of the current
campaign literally chopping their boats up with large
power tools in a desperate struggle to remodel and gain
boat speed. Now they accuse OneWorld of possessing their
trade secrets. Like what? Owner's manuals for a fleet
of Poulan chainsaws?
Finally, and sadly, consider the third leg of the great
New Zealand Hypocrisy Triad — Team NZ itself, whose
role in this scumfest (conveniently delivering to Conner
and Prada a raft of previously unlaundered details about
the old charges against OneWorld), amazingly, has been
glossed over completely.
Are the great Kiwis, having sized up the new class,
so worried about their ability to defeat alleged copies
of their own generation-old boats that they're willing
to stoop to the level of desperate challengers?
Clearly, the Seattle syndicate — composed, like all
such budding efforts, of former members of other teams
— was guilty of bad judgment in failing to purge itself
of anything bearing another group's fingerprints. (Although
recall that its rules advisor at the time was that paragon
of virtue, Reeves.)
But did any of this really give OneWorld a leg up on
competition that includes teams such as Switzerland's
Alinghi, another Kiwi-stocked camp whose boats also
bear suspicious resemblance to Team NZ's?
International
Jury to consider allegations (11/26/02) (sources
: LV
Cup&
NZ
Herald)
The campaign to have OneWorld Challenge thrown
out of the Louis Vuitton Cup took another step forward
on Tuesday night, when the regatta's International Jury
ruled that it had the jurisdiction to rule on the issue.
As many of the potential witnesses in the case are also
on the OneWorld sailing team, the Jury has deemed it
fair to wait until the end of the Quarter Final Repechage
to hear the case, so as to not prejudice OneWorld’s
performance on the water.
The last scheduled reserve day for this Repechage series
is Sunday, 1st December but the Jury will meet with
representatives from both of the teams on Wednesday
evening to work out a schedule for hearing the protest.
At this point, Team Dennis Conner will submit a written
list of specific charges against OneWorld, along with
a list of witnesses it hopes to call to support those
charges.
One of these witnesses should be Reeves, Team New Zealand's
former rules adviser, who was used by OneWorld to recruit
key team members including Team New Zealand's designer
Laurie Davidson.
The Team DC protest should be resolved early next week.
But if the International Jury rules against OneWorld
there are implications for all the challengers, including
those who have already been eliminated and might demand
redress, putting the whole Louis Vuitton Cup in disarray.
This protest to the International Jury doesn’t have
any direct bearing on the joint submission that Prada
and Team Dennis Conner made to the Arbitration Panel
on Sunday requesting a hearing on the OneWorld case.
The Arbitration Panel has indicated a time-frame for
its decision process that could take over four weeks.
