"Desperate moves made by desperate people" - is the way OneWorld's executive director Bob Ratcliffe dismissed the latest attempt to have the Seattle team brought to book for allegedly using the design materials of other teams.
Desperate? Well you could argue that rebuilding ITA 80 but then discarding her and re-bowing ITA 74 and sailing her for only a few hours before racing in the quarter-final repechage was not in original Prada battle plan.
Neither could losing USA 77 to the bottom of Long Beach harbour last August and playing catch-up ever since have been listed in the optimal category in Team Dennis Conner's strategic plan. So, both Prada and Team Dennis Conner are under the cosh, having to win in the repechage or be eliminated: which might explain the timing of their new offensive.
Timing... this is the key to this latest squabble. Should Team Dennis Conner and Prada have lodged their application before the Louis Vuitton challenger trials commenced? Yes, say the conditions unless their parties can prove a new violation or that they were unaware of evidence.
The Arbitration Panel works by discovery process. The warring parties submit their own evidence and respond to that of others. That's why it took eight months for the Panel to hear OneWorld's own application lodged last December that it had ooops!, ended-up with some design material that it shouldn't have had. 'Fess up and take the rap was the OneWorld strategy.
This was not the usual information carried around in designers, sailors and technicians heads as they move from team to team, or even their personal records or copyrighted work. It went way beyond that.
The Panel cried foul and fined OneWorld 1pt.
Just why the matter did not end there can be boiled down to three factors. One, is the role of Sean Reeves, Team New Zealand's 2000 rules advisor who became agent provocateur in recruiting team mates to OneWorld before having an almighty falling out with the Seattle team. Given a US$600,000 severance package he ended in court when OneWorld sued him for breaching that agreement.
Reeves has remained in-play ever since his affidavits fingered a raft of former Team New Zealand team mates for alleged Protocol transgressions including Laurie Davidson, Richard Karn, Ian Mitchell and Jeremy Scantlebury. Likewise Mike Spanhake is accused by Reeves' affidavit of, allegedly, bringing Prada's sail design secrets to the Seattle team.
Two, is the fact that since there was no hearing or cross examination of witnesses when the Panel made its original decision, most members of the Cup family felt that the allegations were only addressed. They were neither proven nor refuted to anyone's particular satisfaction.
Three, is that because Team New Zealand was hurt most by the extent and detail of the material Reeves alleges ended up at OneWorld, it has spent a long time dwelling on whether to lodge its own complaint to the Panel. It even asked the challengers last June if they wanted to join forces. All declined. No doubt the Panel will scrutinise that particular aspect of the timing very closely in light of Prada's and Team Dennis Conner's subsequent action.
TNZ elected not to re-open the entire squalid issue since thwould have set the word of current bosses Tom Schnackenberg and Ross Blackman amongst others, against the men who had helped win two America's Cups in 1995 and 2000. The PR downside would have not been nice.
Instead, TNZ can sit back and watch their evidence being used by two challengers against another in a nasty internecine battle.
Tim Jeffery, 26 November 2002
