The Aerolab saga just doesn’t seem to die down as Force India have been ordered to pay £650,000 regarding the legal action it took against Aerolab, Caterham and Mike Gascoyne for infringing copyright.
In March, it was the opposite way round when Force India received £21,000 after the High Court ruled that their 2010 car’s parts had been used by Caterham (then Lotus) to design their car for that year.
Caterham had said in its statement that it had ‘systematically’ copied the VJM-03 but the Court ruled that it was simple copy-paste from one car to the other.
Yesterday’s hearing resulted in the Court ruling that Force India must pay Caterham technical chief Mike Gascoyne – who was acquitted of any wrongdoing originally – costs on a full indemnity basis from November 2011 and costs on a standard basis before then, which amounts to roughly £400,000.
The 1 Malaysia Racing Team, under which Lotus (Caterham) raced, was also awarded something in the region of £250,000 on a similar basis.
Force India said that its application for permission to appeal was deferred with another hearing to take place in the coming weeks. Their statement was “The appeal relates to the 25,000 Euros of damages that Aerolab and Fondtech were ordered to pay Sahara Force India Formula One Team for misuse of confidential information. The interim costs payments awarded to Mr Gascoyne and 1 Malaysia Racing in today’s ruling are more than covered by funds already provided by Sahara Force India Formula One Team as security for costs pending the outcome of the case.”
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