Force India to pay $1.12 mn in dues to wind tunnel company

Sepang, Malaysia: Force India will have to pay the 846,230 euros ($1.12 million) it owes to its former wind tunnel partner, Aerolab, as part of the resolution of a related claim it made against rival Formula One team Caterham. The High Court in London ruled Wednesday that Aerolab must pay Force India 25,000 euros ($33,100) for misuse of confidential information, as employees passed on some of Force India’s aerodynamic designs to Caterham — then known as Lotus — for the design of its 2010 car. Force India also brought claims of a conspiracy to misuse the team’s intellectual property against Aerolab and Caterham’s chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne. However, Justice Arnold ruled Force India “has come nowhere near establishing that.” “On the evidence, the alleged conspiracy theory failed to emerge and there was no evidence of systematic copying,” said Tim Bamford, partner in intellectual property law for the legal firm Withers, acting for the defendants. [caption id=“attachment_252225” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Force India will have to pay the 846,230 euros ($1.12 million) it owes to its former wind tunnel partner, Aerolab, as part of the resolution of a related claim it made against rival Formula One team Caterham. Reuters”] [/caption] “The outcome is plainly a very satisfactory one for all of the defendants but particularly for Mr. Gascoyne who was sued in his personal capacity.” Force India had valued the designs of its car at 15 million pounds ($23.8 million) and a bigger judgment in its favor would have offset the costs of the money it owed Aerolab, which had been held by a neutral third party pending the outcome of the case. There will be a further hearing in May to decide legal costs. Force India said in a statement that it would refer the partial judgment against Aerolab, and the involvement of Caterham, to Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, to decide if there would be any sporting sanctions. Such a process could take months and may need to be referred to the World Motor Sports Council, the peak body of the FIA. A related legal case by Force India against Gascoyne, Aerolab chief Jean-Claude Migeot and Caterham team boss and Air Asia chief Tony Fernandes was being pursued through the Italian courts. AP