McLaren have hit back at suggestions that several team members saw the secret Ferrari documents held by Coughlan, stating that no team members knew about the documents until legal action started two weeks ago.
Over the weekend, Italian newspaper La Repubblica claimed that in his affidavit, Coughlan said he had shown the Ferrari documents to various members of the McLaren team. This comes after suggestions from Ferrari s High Court application that McLaren managing director Jonathan Neale knew about the documents before legal action began.
McLaren issued a statement where they dismiss the allegations, reiterating that Coughlan acted alone and that they knew nothing of the situation until Ferrari applied for a search warrant to search Coughlan s home.
“McLaren is concerned that erroneous speculation has arisen from inaccurate and misleading reference to the contents of confidential legal papers filed at court in response to Ferrari s UK action to recover its intellectual property,†McLaren s statement began. “This is unfortunate and is prejudicial to a fair interpretation of these matters.
“McLaren can confirm from its own investigation that no Ferrari materials or data are, or have even been, in the possession of any McLaren employee other than the individual sued by Ferrari. The fact that he held at his home unsolicited materials from Ferrari was now know to any other member of the team prior to the 3rd July 2007.â€
