Those following the drama of the purloined Ferrari documents will recall that a British court proceeding brought by Ferrari against Mike Coughlan and his wife, Trudy, ended rather abruptly with a deal being struck between Coughlan, his wife, and Ferrari. Under the agreement, Coughlan, chief engineer for McLaren, and his wife would provide a detailed affidavit to Ferrari explaining precisely how the Coughlans came into possession of 780 pages of secret Ferrari technical data and drawings. In return, Ferrari agreed it would not provide that affidavit to prosecuting authorities in Italy.
Though most of the details remain unclear, some of the information set out in the Coughlan affidavits is leaking out. What’s coming out doesn’t entirely support the claims of innocence repeatedly issued by McLaren, but doesn’t entirely contradict those claims either.
According to a report by Martin Brundle in the TimesOnLine website, Coughlan admitted in his affidavit the obvious – that he had possession of the Ferrari documents. No news there. The documents were found in his residence. But he also acknowledged showing them to several of his colleagues at McLaren. According to Coughlan, all of those to whom he showed the documents told him that he should destroy them.
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