Ellison in court over America’s Cup

The battle for the America’s Cup is being fought not on the high seas but in New York State Supreme Court.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, whose team lost the race this year, has accused winner Ernesto Bertarelli of manipulating the rules governing the next cup.

The court case, filed by the Golden Gate Yacht Club, charges that Bertarelli’s team has accepted a challenge from a team with no standing, and has refused to disclose design specifications for boats sailing in the race. Bertarelli’s group, Societe Nautique de Geneve, has turned the competition into a “Defender’s Cup,” the suit charges.

Justice Herman Kahn has scheduled a hearing for Oct. 22.

Ellison is known not only for his love of sailing, but for his fierce competitiveness. He owns the world’s second-largest private yacht, the 454-foot Rising Sun, which was designed to be longer than Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen’s yacht, Octopus.

However, as Robert Frank has noted in the Wall Street Journal Wealth Report, Ellison is building a new boat. The Rising Sun, it turns out, is too big to park at most of the world’s marinas.

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