Sunday, October 21, 2007

And may the America's Cup win!

Best wishes to Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) in their defense of the Deed of Gift against the challenger, Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), and SNG's attempt to convert the ancient document to govern a yacht racing event for which it was not designed. God speed!

1 comment:

sailboatracer said...

Key points regarding this dispute:-

1. CNEV have defined a protocol the content of which would probably be considered as reaonably normal if CNEV were the organisers of an open regatta and they were providing a trophy for competition by yachts of a specified design.

2. However in this case, CNEV are also competing for (or to be more specific defending) the trophy through their representative Alinghi. So the ability of CNEV to define key aspects of the rules such as appointment of officials, adjudicators, eliminate the appeal processes etc completely slants the rules in their favour.

3. Neither CNEV or Alinghi own the America's Cup. Defenders of the America's Cup have to abide by a set of rules (Deed of Gift) which were laid down when the original owners of the America's Cup presented the trophy for competition.

4. Oracle through GGYC have gone to court to say that the current Challenger of Record does not comply with the requirements laid down in the Deed of Gift and hence the next America's Cup Challemge cannot go ahead until a valid Challenger of Record is appointed. If the current Challenger of Record is deemed by the New York court to be invalid than the current event protocol which they agreed with CNEV/Alinghi is also invalid.

5. Next step is a ruling from the court on the case (ie the validity of the current Challenger of Record). Focussing on the Challenger of Record issues and legal precedents would indicate that the court decision is more likely to be in favour of GGYC/BMW Oracle rather than CNEV/Alinghi.

6. There is a lot of PR and media attention relating to negotiation between CNEV and GGYC on specific items of the protocol but this overlooks the fact that there are numerous issues which are biased in favour of GGYC and which GGYC wants changed.

7. If the court rules in favour of GGYC then the options are for CNEV to proceed with the challenge as submitted by GGYC or for CNEV/Alinghi and GGYC/BMW Oracle to sit down and agree a fairer protocol, which allows the next competition to continue with the registered challengers plus more who would presumably challenge once the uncertainties are removed. The latter situation would be the best outcome which allows an exciting global event to take place building upon the excellent 2007 event in Valencia