Feud continues as US judge orders F1 prototype information to be handed over
UK start-up manufacturer Farnborough Aircraft (FACL) and US firm Aircraft Investor Resources (AIR) are heading for arbitration on 20 March to try to settle a bitter legal dispute over a collapsed manufacturing joint venture to develop their respective F1 and Epic LT turboprop singles.
The feud climaxed late last year when FACL sued AIR, parent of general aviation manufacturer Epic Aircraft, and its chief executive Rick Schrameck, for up to $100 million in damages. FACL alleges that AIR failed to honour the terms of the two companies’ design, development, construction and certification agreement set out in September 2003. FACL also alleges that AIR failed to deliver the F1 prototypes the UK company had paid AIR to help build and that AIR has sought to extract additional, unjustified payments from FACL by threatening to destroy the first prototype aircraft and associated tooling.
Under the agreement FACL says the companies were to develop the F1 in parallel with the Epic LT, which would have been offered as a kit-built model under an experimental certificate. The F1, meanwhile, was to have a slightly larger cabin and be built to higher specifications for full type certification.
The dispute heated up last week when a US district court judge granted an injunction ordering AIR to provide Farnborough officials immediate access to the F1 prototype, which FACL says AIR had disassembled without its permission. The injunction also prevents either party from disclosing “any proprietary or alleged proprietary information to any third party” without court permission or a written agreement from both parties. The judge has also ordered AIR to mate a set of wings to the F1 by early March.
AIR claims that FACL was never its partner: “FACL and AIR were parties to a joint development agreement for a new concept aircraft,” it says, “wherein each agreed to share information in the development of their respective prototypes. There are very clear restrictions on both the use of each other’s proprietary information, and more importantly, on one’s use of the other’s design.”
AIR filed a countersuit last year against Abu Dhabi-based Gulf Aircraft Maintenance (GAMCO). It claims GAMCO misappropriated its intellectual property by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with FACL at November’s Dubai air show to develop the F1 under the name Kestrel JP100. AIR says: “Never did FACL ever tell anyone at AIR about its plans for the Kestrel or that it had created a new entity under the name of Gulf Aircraft Partners to manufacture and market the Kestrel, which is a mirror image of the Epic.”
FACL and GAMCO dispute AIR’s claims. FACL says that it is a deliberate attempt by AIR to dispand the MoU, which was terminated recently by GAMCO, although dialogue between the two companies continues, says FACL.
KATE SARSFIELD / LONDON
Source: Flight International
