The 2009 America's Cup may be in jeopardy as Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing are unable to agree on compromise in America's Cup controversy.

Alinghi said they have done much to try to convince BMW Oracle Racing to drop their law suit. They instigated a Protocol review with the entered Challengers, agreed a number of amendments to satisfy the GGYC and BMW Oracle's claims.

At this point, Russell Coutts requested via the Challengers group, reassurance that Alinghi would not have a head start in designing their new boat and advised at least two challengers BMW Oracle Racing would settle if Alinghi could prove it did not have a design advantage.

Alinghi responded by asking the entered Challengers to set the displacement, a fundamental parametre, for the new class. The Challengers did so, and were satisfied that this would negate any design head start.

For BMW Oracle Racing it still was not enough and they then wanted to analyse the displacement parametre in light of the full rules, not trusting the Challenger’s designers, who confirmed the parametre was crucial enough to provide the expected guarantees.

To the dismay of Alinghi and the Challengers, BMW Oracle Racing, through Russell Coutts, sent a letter on 18th October to Alinghi with a further nine issues to be satisfied, including new points not previously raised. Several of these were completely against the fundamentals of the programme agreed by all legitimately entered Challengers and the cost cutting strategy presiding over the 33rd America’s Cup.

"Alinghi continually refused to enter discussions. But then it made concession, including changes to the protocol, it made changes according to their requests," America's Cup Management chief executive Michel Hodara said Sunday. "But every time we made a concession, they asked for another."

"Alinghi is working with the Challengers to develop the new class rule", said Grant Simmer, Alinghi design team coordinator, regard to the rules disclosure.

"This was started on the 15 September and the Challengers have stated that they are happy with this process. There are several key issues still being debated but we are working towards issuing the rule on 31 October. If BOR chooses to enter they will be welcomed into this process."

A press statement late Saturday from the Golden Gate Yacht Club (CGYC), representing Oracle, offered a different vision and said that Alinghi had rejected a compromise proposal they had put forward aimed at ending the damaging legal dispute.

"GGYC is very disappointed by this outcome," said spokesman Tom Ehman said, who added the American club had repeatedly asked to see the rule.

"This is a simple question of transparency", he said. "We cannot understand why the defender insists it will only disclose the rule after we have committed to the next event. This amounts to asking us to buy the rule sight-unseen, which no one in our position would find acceptable."

That sent the case before a New York court on Monday, but Michel Hodara, the head of organisers AC Management, said the two sides would talk again informally in New York before the court case opened.

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Meanwhile, Polish skipper Karol Jablonski claims Spain's Desafío Español are to blame for the America's Cup crisis triggered by the new set of rules laid down by Alinghi.

"All of this is in large part the fault of Desafío," Jablonski, who has jumped ship since this year's edition and joined United Internet Team Germany, told newspaper El Mundo. "If they hadn't accepted the Protocol proposed by Alinghi we wouldn't be in this situation. They shouldn't have agreed to these conditions. That's what we think in the world of yachting."