AUGUST 6, 2001
Walkinshaw in (legal) action again
TOM WALKINSHAW is never far from a courtroom - or so it would seem from his involvement in Formula 1 in recent months.
Eurobet announced before the season began that it would no longer be involved in F1 with Arrows but the stickers remained on the cars despite the announcement. Arrows is now claiming that Eurobet has not paid $15m that is outstanding.
The situation is made all the more bizarre by the fact that Eurobet is owned by the Coral betting company, which is itself owned by Morgan Grenfell Private Equity, which also owns 40% of the Arrows team. In essence, therefore, Walkinshaw is suing his partner in F1. It is no secret that MGPE has been trying to off-load its share of Arrows for some time but has been unable to find a buyer.
One can only assume that by taking legal action Walkinshaw is probably hoping that MGPE will sell the shares back to him at a cheap price - just to get rid of the problems. MGPE ran into serious trouble because of its investments in F1 with Arrows but more importantly with EM.TV.