Sir Ben Ainslie was told that Sir Jim Ratcliffe would “burn your house down” in a row over funding for America’s Cup campaigns, High Court documents claim.
Ineos Racing, connected to Sir Jim’s Ineos Group, is suing Sir Ben’s Athena Racing over claims it breached a deal between the two companies by refusing to hand back a multimillion-pound yacht, the Ineos Britannia, which was captained by Sir Ben in the 2024 America’s Cup.
In court documents seen by the Press Association, lawyers for Ineos said the agreement was for it provide £174 million of funding to design, construct and test the Britannia.
But they continued that in 2025, Ineos decided not to renew the agreement for the next edition of the cup in 2027, meaning Athena was therefore required to hand back any “Ineos-funded assets”, including the yacht, which has not happened.
Lawyers for Ineos claimed that this meant Athena had breached the contract, and that the legal claim is “valued at £10 million or more”.
But in a defence to the claim, barristers for Athena said Ineos had “unclean hands” in the claim and was not entitled to have the yacht back, as its conduct had been “reprehensible and improper”.
This included an allegation that Rob Nevin, chairman of Ineos Sport, told Sir Ben shortly before the start of the 2024 cup that, for Ineos to fund future cup campaigns for Athena, it would have to transfer all its assets to Ineos.
Fionn Pilbrow KC, for Athena, said in the court documents that Mr Nevin then told 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.”
Mr Pilbrow said the alleged comment was a “hostile negotiating tactic” and was “unduly aggressive”, and meant Ineos had “no entitlement” to what it sought through the legal action.
Responding to the allegation, a spokesperson for Ineos said: “The case is before the court and we will respect that process. Unlike others, we have no intention of conducting these proceedings in the media.”
A hearing in the claim is yet to take place.
The America’s Cup was first contested in the 1850s and is the oldest international competition in any sport that is still operating, but it has never been won by a British team.
Ineos Britannia became the first British team to compete against the current holder in 2024, but eventually lost 7-2 to Emirates Team New Zealand in Barcelona.
Sir Ben’s GB1 team is now challenging to complete for the 38th America’s Cup in Naples next year.
Conall Patton KC, for Ineos, said in court documents there was a “particular prestige associated” with the Britannia, with the 2024 edition of the cup being Britain’s most successful campaign in the competition’s history.
The barrister continued that the 2021 agreement meant it was “commercially necessary” for Athena to own any yachts designed and carry out “research and development activities”, but that any assets funded by Ineos would have to be returned when the agreement expired.
Mr Patton said Ineos later informed Athena that it would not renew the deal, which expired in January last year.
He added that, under the terms of the agreement, this meant Athena would have to return assets funded by Ineos, and that Ineos would have to pay Athena’s running costs until it was wound down “to a minimal level” or found alternative financial sponsorship.
But the barrister said that Athena could have returned the assets by February 2025, but had “refused or failed, within a reasonable time or at all, to transfer any of the Ineos-funded assets held by it”.
He continued: “By reason of the defendant’s breach of contract, the claimant has suffered loss, namely the value of the Ineos-funded assets on the date on which they should have been transferred to the claimant.”
But Mr Pilbrow said that while Athena had not transferred any assets to Ineos, this did not breach the agreement.
He continued that Ineos’s ownership of assets concerned only those which “were not acquired by the defendant using funding provided by the claimant, but which were acquired directly by the claimant itself”.
He also said that Ineos had “failed to identify any legitimate interest in compelling the transfer of ownership” of the Britannia.
The barrister added that Ineos “does not have any commercial use” for the vessel and “could have obtained a substitute” had it wished to do so, and said that transferring the yacht would “radically and irreparably harm” Athena’s preparations for the 2027 cup.
