There is a good argument to be made that very few cases in recent legal history have featured the exquisite litigation skills of such a high-priced, high-caliber cadre of lawyers as those who have toiled, at little or no benefit to society, on the America’s Cup dispute between billionaire sailors Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli. (Here’s our most recent previous coverage of the litigation, which includes links to older posts.)
But after attending a Tuesday morning Manhattan state court hearing in the latest round of the apparently interminable case, we have to say that lawyers for the dueling yacht clubs sure are entertaining. Arguments over who gets to decide the location of the sailing race at times sounded like a debate at the U.N. General Assembly. When the debate ended, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich ruled that Ras al-Khaimah, one of the emirates of the United Arab Emirates, cannot host the next America’s Cup, which is scheduled to start in February 2010.
