The Daily Telegraph has reported that Sir Ben Ainslie’s Anthea Racing team made a defence filing last Thursday against the High Court filing made by Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos.
Ratcliffe’s Ineos filing requires Athena Racing to hand over the AC75 boat Britannia they built for the 37th America’s Cup.
The Athena Racing filing claims that Ineos’s conduct ‘has been, by any objective standard, reprehensible and improper.’ And includes an account of when Ineos security visited the British Cup team at their working site, and told those working there that they were banned from using the site and were instructed to leave which they refused to do.
The next day the Ineos employees returned, chaining and padlocking the building from the outside, locking Cup team employees inside. They were eventually persuaded to remove the locks on health and safety grounds.
Ainslie’s Athena filing also claims that they were locked out of their IT system at MercedesF1 for six months of 2025.
Ainslie has not commented publicly on the Ineos actions apart from recently claiming that Athena Racing had access to Britannia – renamed GB1 – and that they were continuing with work on modifying the AC75 to conform to the latest rule changes required for the 38th America’s Cup.
The case will now be heard at the High Court following a reply by Ineos, but it is unlikely to be heard this year, or even before the 38th America’s Cup Match, scheduled for 2027 at Naples.
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