Til alle Laser seilere fra styret i Norsk Laserklubb!
Som dere har sikkert fått med dere er det en pågående konflikt mellom ILCA og Laser Performance (bygger og eier av Laser patenten). Vi som styret i NLK er bekymret med tanke på at denne konflikten kan få store konsekvenser for Laser klassen og påvirke valg av Laser som olympisk klasse. Vi har nå kommet til neste steg av konflikten hvor ILCA ønsker å endre på regel som betyr etter vår mening at de presser Laser Performance patentet ut fra klassen:
The Proposed Class Rule Change
Change the ILCA Class Rules, Part 1, as follows:
Definition of Builder: A Builder is a manufacturer that has the rights to use a Laser trademark, is manufacturing the hull, equipment, fittings, spars, sails and battens in strict adherence to the Construction Manual, and has been approved as a Laser Builder by each of World Sailing and the International Laser Class Association.
Styret fikk en email fra EurILCA (hvorav kopi vedlagt her nede) ang. denne saken med anbefaling. Styret i NLK synes dette er en svært viktig sak for alle Laserseilere i Norge og for oss er det viktig å lytte til våre medlemmer i denne saken. Derfor legger vi ut en meningsmåling i vår FB gruppe hvor dere seilere kan påvirke vår tilbakemelding til EurILCA.
Styrets anbefaling er at vi følger EurILCA sitt standpunkt
OBS: som individuell seiler kan du i tillegg også legge inn ditt valg på ILCA og oppfordre alle andre seilere til å gjøre det samme.
Har du spørsmål send da en email til post@ilcanorge.no
Mvh
Marit Hagland
Leder NLK
EurILCA email
Fra: Eurilca Team
Dato: 3. juli 2019 kl. 11:05:28 CEST
Til: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Emne: EC 574 – ILCA vote on rule change – It’s about a name change
Dear District Officer,
You all have received yesterday morning the 2 nd of July an announcement of ILCA to kick off the vote for a rule change to be sent out to your members with a process starting the day before the 1 st of July.
EurILCA is recommending to vote NO.
We, as EurILCA, would like to inform you that we do NOT agree with the reasons for this vote and consequently do ask our members to vote NO for the following reasons:
● Voting NO does not mean that you vote is for Laser being kick out of the Olympics, but it will force all the parties to come to an agreement with the ongoing negotiations.
● A lot of progress has been made in the negotiations and discussions between World Sailing, ILCA and the commercial parties. There is still documents to be signed which are relevant to maintain Olympic status like the Olympic contract for example. EurILCA is fully aware of World Sailing’s statements in this regard. From EurILCA’s judgment the deadline of 1st August, 2019 for the FRAND policy and related documents required by World Sailing can be met if all the parties keep working together as they do right now.
● Current progress in the process of closing out the issues between ILCA and LP and consequently to get agreements on several issues are very promising. As an example, the license agreement regarding using the trademark for the name “Laser” between ILCA and LP has just been signed.
● We are convinced that any activity to remove the trademark ( just after the Trademark agreement was signed) is provocative and destroying the just build up trust we could recently feel between the parties All parties are in agreement that the Olympic status is important to the class; this common goal is enough of an incentive to keep working together to resolve the remaining issues.
● This vote – while being declared as fall back scenario for a plan B – will allow to change the name of our boat to ” ILCA DINGHY” without any further consultation of the members of ILCA. Do you want to call your boat an ILCA dinghy?
● It’s also could be consider as a blank check to ILCA management to rename our class at any time they wish.
● The document states that it would only be used in case no agreement between the parties could be achieved as an ultimate tool to remain Olympic. EurILCA is not trusting this statement. The outcome of the vote would only be available after the deadline of 1st August, 2019. So, in the unlikely case that no agreement was achieved between the parties the Laser would be out of the Olympics no matter what the outcome of the ballot.
● We cannot even fully judge all the changes of the rules as only 1 article – see below – is mentioned and then it includes the phrase in yellow which will allow ILCA to modify ALL other rules of the class rules accordingly. In our opinion this is not acceptable as we would like to know each and every change of the rules.
● In February 2019, ILCA proposed this rule change for voting to the World council. At that time 2 Europeans members of the World council vote in favor after a week of consultation of the EurILCA board. Later on we discovered that we were miss inform and that we had not all the documents to understand the situation. We had no idea that it was for the name change. If we will have known that it was for the name change we will have vote NO.
● Is it a coincidence that the ILCA board proposed a rule change last year to move from 6 months to one month the voting period?
● We also discovered recently that the ILCA board has created a company called” Weather helm” in order to do some commercial activities. The World council was never informed about this.
| The Proposed Class Rule Change Change the ILCA Class Rules, Part 1, as follows: Definition of Builder: A Builder is a manufacturer that |
If approved, other class rules affected by this rule change will be modified to be consistent with the amended definition of Builder. This will include all rules covering the brand name of the equipment.
Best regards,
The EurILCA Executive Committee
and the 2 Europeans sitting at the World council (not member of the ILCA board).