Ineos deny physical intimidation as Athena legal battle rumbles on

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Racing have pushed back against any insinuation of physically threatening behaviour towards Sir Ben Ainslie’s Athena Racing, as the battle over who owns Britain’s America’s Cup challenger continues to simmer.

In a legal reply to Athena’s defence against Ineos’s claim filed this week in the High Court of Justice, Ratcliffe’s lawyers have insisted that “scorched earth” comments made by Ineos Sport chairman Rob Nevin in a meeting with Ainslie during the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona were meant figuratively rather than literally. Ineos have also denied a claim of “false imprisonment” of Athena employees at the team’s Turweston base in January last year.

More fundamentally, the legal reply indicates that Ineos is doubling down on their assets claim, which continue to undermine Athena’s Challenger bid for AC38 next summer, under its new Oakley Capital-backed guise of GB1.

Here’s a breakdown of the main points from the new document, which was filed with the court on Monday.

Athena’s defence filed in June asserted that the conduct of Ineos during their former alliance had been “by any objective standard, reprehensible and improper”. Among the most striking revelations was a report of a meeting Athena claimed took place “a matter of hours before” racing commenced for AC37 on October 12 2024, in which Nevin and his associate Jean-Claude Blanc were said to have demanded a transfer of all team assets and intellectual property to Ineos.

“This is what Jim wants,” Nevin is reported to have said. “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).”

In their reply, Ineos have not denied the language that was used, but stated: “It is denied that these words would reasonably have been understood by Sir Ben as a ‘threat’ of anything other than [Ineos] 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.”

Ineos have also stated the conversation did not happen on October 12 ahead of the first race of AC37, but two days later on October 14 – the day upon which they claim Nevin and Blanc arrived in Barcelona. Ineos say that Athena were already looking beyond their alliance for a fresh attack on AC38 before AC37 was complete.

“The meeting (and its timing) was prompted by an email dated 11 October 2024 from Sir Ben,” the reply states. “Sir Ben forwarded a request from the Chairman of RYS [Royal Yacht Squadron], Mr Bertie Bicket, that [Ineos] release RYS from the 2021 Yacht Club Agreement so as to enable RYS to enter into a new yacht club agreement with [Athena] for AC38. Sir Ben pressed for this issue to be “cleared up asap” and said he was “Available to speak if necessary”. Mr Nevin replied that the release of RYS from the 2018 Yacht Club Agreement was “simple”… and “Anyway it will get sorted”, and suggested Sir Ben focus on the racing. However, Sir Ben pressed for the issue to be further discussed, despite the imminence of racing.”

The Athena defence also claimed that on January 24 2025, Ineos’s Raymond Fellows arrived at the team’s Turweston base and ordered employees to vacate the site, leaving their laptops and assets behind. When they refused, “Mr Fellows and his associates proceeded to chain and padlock the doors to the Defendant’s site from the outside, and affixed ‘No Entry’ signs. In so doing, Mr Fellows and his associates… imprisoned the Defendant’s employees in the site without any lawful authority.”

The Ineos reply admits the front doors were locked, but ‘false imprisonment’ is denied. “Mr Fellows caused the glass doors to the reception area of the building to be padlocked to stop anyone entering the building,” reads the document, “and, when he did so, he did not know or believe that he was locking anyone inside the building and did not intend to detain anyone… He did not in fact imprison anyone, since there were alternative exit routes. Further and in any event, Mr Fellows was not authorised by [Ineos] to detain anyone.”

Beyond the points of view on intimidation, the reply continues to maintain the line that Ineos have a clear and genuine claim on the team assets. Once again, it states that when the agreement between the two companies ended after AC37, Athena were obliged to wind down operations and transfer Ineos-funded assets back to Ratcliffe’s company.

Athena claim they found alternative backing through Oakley, thus vetoing this part of the agreement. But the Ineos reply to the defence states that nothing of the scale required to fund an AC38 campaign existed by January 2025 or before the Oakley Capital announcement in December 2025, thereby failing to trigger the crucial clause in the termination agreement. It also reasserts that Ineos’s formal letter of termination of the alliance in January 2025 was a valid instruction to transfer the assets it had paid for – and that Athena’s refusal to do so was a breach of contract.

The point on tax relief, as stated in Athena’s defence, also looks likely to be central to the case if – or perhaps that should simply be when – it is heard in court. Ineos dispute Athena’s framing that the funding provided was tax-deductible because it was sponsorship, instead claiming it was deductible as a trading expense of its marketing business. Crucially, Ineos deny Athena's capital allowance and R&D tax relief claims were undermined by Ineos's option to call for asset transfers. 

It appears likely that the outcome will hinge on which party has the strongest contractual interpretation.

Meanwhile, Athena press ahead with their GB1 campaign for AC38, with the long shadow of this dispute looming large. Without a clear and obvious resolution, there’s no way of guaranteeing the official Challenger of Record will be able to take their place under starter’s orders next July.