Team NZ win rights to data on old cup boats

Team New Zealand have been told they have the rights to design information about their own America's Cup yachts.

A cup arbitration panel has ruled that Team New Zealand, who will defend the trophy in 2003, own their old boats and all the information about them.

United States cup challengers Oracle Racing queried the status of Team New Zealand 2003, suggesting they were a different corporate entity from that which won the cup last year.

Oracle Racing asked the panel to clarify if that meant Team New Zealand could not, therefore, have both their old boats, NZL60 and NZL57, and their design information.

Cup rules state a syndicate cannot buy "old" boats and the rights to "plans, specifications and design information" for those boats from another entity.

The rules were designed to ensure syndicates have independent designers and do not share technology.

Oracle also asked for a ruling on whether they could purchase the design data for four yachts they had bought - the AmericaOne and Aloha boats from the last cup's challenger series.

Neither AmericaOne nor Aloha are competing in the next cup.

The five-member panel, in an interim written ruling, said the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron was the defender of the cup, not Team New Zealand.

It said the squadron had submitted that Team New Zealand Ltd was its agent, and the same entity which won the cup in 1995 and 2000.

The panel said the yachts and design information remained the property of Team New Zealand Ltd.

But Oracle have been told they will be breaching cup rules if they purchase the design information for AmericaOne or Aloha boats.

Oracle Racing are owned by computer billionaire Larry Ellison and include former AmericaOne skipper Paul Cayard and New Zealander Chris Dickson in their team.

The panel did not say whether performance and testing data was covered by its ruling.

It has asked syndicates to make submissions on that issue before it releases its final ruling.

- NZPA