Sir Ben Ainslie and Sir Jim Ratcliffe reportedly want to settle their legal row out of court rather than wait over 12 months for the next available trial date. Ineos sued the four-time Olympic champion sailor's Athena Racing team in March over their use of a racing yacht they claim to have spent £180million on.
Ainslie and Ratcliffe stopped working together last January. They teamed up for two America's Cups in Auckland in 2021 and in Barcelona in 2024.
Third America's Cup campaign abandoned
Manchester United's minority shareholder previously committed to a third. However, that all changed last year after the pair fell out.
More than a year after proceedings commenced, Ainslie told The Telegraph in Naples this weekend: "A lot of water has flowed under the bridge over the last 18 months."
"We had a mutual desire to win the America's Cup, and I'm confident we'll be able to find a way to resolve this before it goes to court."
Court backlog and defence claims
As initially reported by The Telegraph, the earliest available slots for hearings and trials at the Commercial Court that are anticipated to run longer than a week are from 15 November 2027. That would be four months after next year's America's Cup concludes.
Ainslie's defence against the High Court proceedings initiated by Ratcliffe alleges that he demanded "all of [the team's] assets and intellectual property" be transferred to him in exchange for his continued backing. The filing claims Ineos Sport chairman Rob Nevin "stated to Sir Ben: 'This is what Jim wants.'"
"We have a phrase at Ineos: 'scorched earth'. It means that if you don't give Jim what he wants, he will burn your house down' (or words to that effect)."
Ineos response in court documents
Chief executive Jean-Claude Blanc is also alleged to have confronted Ainslie alongside chairman Nevin. Their legal representatives did not dispute that.
Ineos stated in submitted court documents: "It is admitted that Mr Nevin indicated that Sir Jim would not back down (and had only ever done so in a dispute concerning the People's Republic of China) and in that context referred to 'scorched earth'.
"But it is denied that these comments would reasonably have been understood by Sir Ben as a 'threat' of anything other than the claimant enforcing its legal rights to the fullest extent possible."
"Mr Nevin's words were intended to be, and would reasonably have been understood to be, used in a figurative rather than a literal sense."
