Conner brings top US legal eagle on board

by Helen Tunnah on 1 Dec 2002 One of America's top lawyers, Richard Scruggs, has moved from defending a tobacco whistleblower, played by actor Russell Crowe in the movie The Insider, to backing long-time friend Dennis Conner in his America's Cup legal row.

Mr Scruggs, a Mississippi lawyer who reportedly earned fees of more than $1 billion in lawsuits against tobacco giants, is a high-profile stalwart of the Conner campaign.

Team Dennis Conner would not confirm yesterday if Mr Scruggs was acting for them and Prada in a joint bid to have OneWorld Challenge thrown out of the America's Cup for using other teams' design secrets.

But he has reportedly written to OneWorld and told them to pull out to protect the 'dignity' of the event.

The New York Times newspaper said Mr Scruggs had accused OneWorld of using lawsuits to try to prevent evidence against the Seattle team being presented to the America's Cup Arbitration Panel, which will hear the dispute next week.

Mr Scruggs owns the 37m yacht Emerald K, which has been berthed in front of the Stars and Stripes compound at the Viaduct Harbour in both cups hosted here.

A team spokesman said Mr Scruggs was not in New Zealand at the moment, and would not say if he was an addition to Conner's legal team in the New York Yacht Club's battle with the Seattle Yacht Club.

On the first day of the challenger series Mr Scruggs was 17th man on Stars and Stripes.

He made his legal mark taking class actions over asbestos poisoning, later moving into the tobacco lawsuits.

Crowe played Jeffrey Wigand and starred alongside Al Pacino in the Hollywood movie The Insider, in which the tobacco executive blew the whistle on what the industry giants knew about the addictive properties of cigarettes.

Mr Scruggs and his legal partners took on Mr Wigand's case, and later represented dozens of states in suing tobacco companies.

He has also been involved in reviewing Australia's tobacco industry.

www.nzherald.co.nz/americascup