KEY POINTS:
"A war hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, high chief of all the Vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 helmets all with the horns on the inside."
- Edmund Blackadder, Blackadder Goes Forth.
It's tempting to apply this little gem to the tangled saga that is the
America's Cup after Emirates Team New Zealand abandoned its legal action against Alinghi so the Swiss will come and play in the Louis Vuitton Pacific Series early next year.
Meanwhile, BMW Oracle seem becalmed on an ocean of indifference from which their only escape now appears to be to win in court.
ETNZ head Grant Dalton said the Kiwis had not been bullied by the Swiss into dropping the lawsuit. Whether you believe that or not, Team NZ's partnership with Louis Vuitton has been a clever ploy.
It produced an instant response from Alinghi, possibly worried at the New Zealand-sparked series taking over from an America's Cup endlessly moored in American courtrooms.
This may be a good time to make the point that, while British lawyers like to see themselves as members
of a great and civilised institution, American lawyers like to see themselves in two houses, each
with a swimming pool and limo.
So the Alinghi ultimatum _ drop your court case or we won't come _ was a godsend for Dalton and Team NZ . It allowed them to ditch a costly manoeuvre which many thought ill-conceived. It also exposed them to the possibility of Cup rules allowing Alinghi to exclude syndicates who take court action from the next regatta.
The decision to abandon the court action suggests that New York lawyer Cory Friedman might have got it right. Friedman cast strong doubt on the efficacy of the Team NZ case, calling it "The Lawsuit To Nowhere".
"It appears," he wrote, "that TNZ's cases were rather poorly thought out... While a party can always
plead inconsistently, at some point inconsistency becomes incoherence. TNZ seems to be there, as over and over again opposing counsel was able to turn TNZ's factual allegations back upon TNZ to undercut key elements of TNZ's effort to avoid arbitration."
Dalton begs to differ and says he could call on five lawyers who would all say the Team NZ case was sound.
But legal action taken and then dropped is hardly the stuff of triumph and to maintain that dropping the court case was all about the Louis Vuitton is like _ to re-enter the world of Blackadder _ Baldrick trying to persuade General Melchett that the white thing on the top of the flagpole wasn't a surrender flag at all but his Uncle Chester's hanky from which they were trying to extract the snot.
However, Dalton and Team NZ have been playing a clever game, as has Alinghi lately _ flexing its muscles by re-opening the entry process for the 33rd America's Cup, inviting BMW Oracle and Team NZ to join in, providing they dropped their legal actions.
A December 15 deadline was given: comply or be written out of
the next America's Cup.
Alinghi got 11 challengers, called for Oracle to end the court case, unveiled plans for a new, cheaper and much more acceptable yacht
for the next Cup regatta and have generally tried to cut Oracle's legs from underneath them; positioning themselves as providing the fairness and the compromise originally sought by many of the challengers.
That now puts Oracle in a position that suggests their cumbersome legal action is all about getting a head-to-head 90-ft trimaran challenge against Alinghi for the Cup and avoiding a challenger series _ and not the all-challengers-in regatta they have said is their motivation.
Oracle will not likely meet the December 15 deadline. Their court case is still alive and the America's Cup fraternity is full of talk that if Oracle lose this case, multi-billionaire owner Larry Ellison will fold up his tent and move off anyway _ no more Oracle.
And look _ who's that sitting
at Alinghi's table and signing the statement calling on Oracle to give up the legal action? Why, that'd be Team NZ, having five bucks each way, with Oracle, one of the first to support the Louis Vuitton Series, on the outer.
If Oracle win in court, Team NZ are okay. If Alinghi win, they're also okay.
The Louis Vuitton series now throws up the intensely ironic scenario of Alinghi's Ernesto Bertarelli crewing on an Oracle boat; with former villain and BMW Oracle CEO Russell Coutts possibly appearing on a Team NZ boat _ as those two syndicates are providing the marine hardware.
Team NZ have a close relationship with a powerful and committed sponsor, Louis Vuitton, who have no love for Alinghi and who might _ in the right circumstances _ be tempted to start a breakaway. Such things have been known in sport (the Packer circus in cricket being one example) with great upset before compromise and equilibrium are found.
So Team NZ have, at best, made a smart tactical withdrawal which has kept the overall objective well in sight. But not bullied?
Maybe Alinghi were manipulated to advantage but trying to suggest otherwise is like the story that appeared in the Manchester Evening News years ago, when a woman was arrested for shoplifting, found with a whole salami in her knickers. When police asked her why, she said she missed her Italian boyfriend.
Team NZ were caught, too. They just had a better answer. And a powerful friend.
