Force India Formula One Team had lodged a complaint with the Criminal Court in Italy and subsequently commenced civil proceedings in the UK High Court following the publication of Team Lotus wind tunnel model pictures in November 2009. The Indian owned team had said that Team Lotus, Aerolab and Mike Gascoyne had illegally copied Force India Formula One Team’s design intellectual property from secure files held at Aerolab.
The case proceeding happened at High Court, London during January 2012 with Mr Justice Arnold finding Team Lotus (now Caterham) and Aerolab being accused for copyright infringement and using confidential information respectively. It may be noted that some parts created using Force India confidential information were used on the Team Lotus race cars in the early part of the 2010 F1 championship. The UK High Court judgement will now be referred for the consideration of Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, whilst the Italian criminal case against Mike Gascoyne, Tony Fernandes and Jean Claude Migeot is still going on.