America's Cup row lawyer fears for safety after threats

By TONY WALL

Auckland lawyer Sean Reeves has hired a security firm to guard his family after he filed court papers alleging that the America's Cup syndicate OneWorld plundered Team New Zealand's design secrets.

Mr Reeves, aged 40, said he had received several threats and was "deeply concerned about my personal safety".

He had received threatening telephone calls and his mail was tampered with. After one threat, he and his wife Melanie left Auckland for the weekend.

Mr Reeves, whose contract with OneWorld was terminated in May last year, said he referred the threats to the police and Telecom was tracing some of the calls. A security firm was making guards available at all times.

Mr Reeves caused a controversy this month when he filed a statement of defences and counter-claims in the United States District Court in Seattle, naming people he claimed had taken design secrets from Team NZ and other syndicates to OneWorld after the last America's Cup.

The statement was in defence of a writ filed by OneWorld last year accusing him of trying to sell $6 million of the syndicate's design and technical plans to Oracle Racing.

Mr Reeves - who is suing OneWorld for defamation - said he had not heard from any of the five New Zealanders he named. He did not know who was behind the threats.

OneWorld spokesman Bob Ratcliffe said he believed Mr Reeves was trying to garner sympathy.

The syndicate's chief executive, Gary Wright, said Mr Reeves was considered only a distraction.

"He has impugned the integrity of at least half-a-dozen people who have spent their lives building reputations around the America's Cup ... he is slowly making enemies up and down the street ... but I don't think criminal behaviour [threats] is something any team would ever consider resorting to."

Mr Wright, who recruited Mr Reeves as a legal adviser for OneWorld, said the syndicate paid Mr Reeves $1.3 million to terminate his contract when he refused to go along with a belt-tightening programme.

"He chose to take a huge payoff at a time when we had no money. I felt that by treating Sean well ... he wouldn't come back here and try to steal anything or sell anything or do anything damaging to us in any way."

Mr Reeves denied he was paid that much but he confirmed that OneWorld's high performance bonus system would have seen him collect "millions" if the syndicate won the cup.

He said he left OneWorld because he did not agree with the ballooning size of its sailing and design teams, and he was concerned by the syndicate's violations of cup protocol.

He said he could prove his claims because he had a duplicate copy of a OneWorld design package he believed was a replica of the Team NZ boat NZL60. OneWorld claims the plans are stolen and wants Mr Reeves to hand them back.

Mr Reeves said if OneWorld dropped its lawsuit, he would happily drop his.

Mr Wright said it was not that easy. "There are lot of guys expecting us to stand up for their honour and integrity ... to let it all sink away would be difficult."

But he said it might be possible to reach a settlement with Mr Reeves once the America's Cup arbitration panel had ruled on OneWorld's alleged protocol violations.

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