DECEMBER 16, 1996

Team Lotus - more legal action

BRITAIN's Department of Trade and Industry is rumored to be about to bring legal action against five of the directors of Team Lotus Ltd.

BRITAIN's Department of Trade and Industry is rumored to be about to bring legal action against five of the directors of Team Lotus Ltd. There are alleged to have been irregularities before the team went into financial administration in September 1994.

The five in question are Peter Collins, Peter Wright, Peter Hall, James McDougall and Alan Curtis. A sixth director GuyÊEdwards is no longer a resident in England and is not expected to be charged. If the legal action is successful the five will be barred from running companies. This will make life difficult for Hall who is chairman of Industrial Control Services, a large electronics group.

The team was bought from the administrator by David Hunt, a former Formula 3000 driver and brother of the late JamesÊHunt - F1 World Champion in 1976. Team Lotus was then liquidated and a new organization called Lotus Grand Prix Racing was established. This did not survive and in December 1994 the workforce was laid off and the team shuts its doors. In February 1995 Hunt moved out of the team's Ketteringham Hall base but established a new company at the Lotus windtunnel and did a deal with Pacific Grand Prix so that the Lotus name could still be used in F1. Pacific shut down at the end of the 1995 season.

Hunt is understood to be continuing to resurrect the team with a company called TLL Realisations Ltd.