The suspended chief designer of the McLaren Formula One team will provide a sworn declaration about how he obtained papers at the heart of an alleged spying row, a spokesperson for Ferrari said on Wednesday.
Mike Coughlan is facing legal action brought by Ferrari at London’s High Court after the Italian team’s chief engineer, Nigel Stepney, was sacked and accused of supplying him with secret technical information in April.
A hearing was due on Wednesday but was cancelled. Ferrari spokesperson Luca Colajanni told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that this was because Coughlan had agreed to provide the affidavit, but stressed that the court action was still ongoing.
”The points that were going to be discussed today [Wednesday] have been settled,” he said.
”Mr Coughlan will provide the affidavit.”
Court officials and Coughlan’s lawyer, Martin Palmer, confirmed to AFP that the hearing had been cancelled. Palmer said it would be inappropriate to comment further given his professional role.
Details of the affidavit will not be disclosed publicly to the court.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, legal sources in the case said that it involved two computer discs believed to contain 780 pages of material.
At a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, Coughlan and his wife, Trudy, were ordered to pay costs following an early morning search of their home in Surrey, south-east England, by officials last week.
Nigel Tozzi, the lawyer representing Ferrari, told Judge Michael Briggs that the Coughlans should not have had documents that were found during the search — a discovery that prompted McLaren to suspend Coughlan.
The defendants had ”behaved disgracefully,” he said, adding that Ferrari could have remained ”blissfully ignorant” of what had happened had it not been for a tip-off.
For the Coughlans, Palmer argued that the defendants had behaved responsibly and any decision should be delayed pending further interim hearings.
The judge noted that Coughlan, who was in court, behaved in an ”entirely appropriate” manner when the search was conducted but ruled that payment should be made. — AFP
