By Phil Huff (30/05/2003)
May 30 2003

It's being reported in Quebec that Lucky Strike BAR Honda could be facing immediate court action, resulting in all three cars at Monaco being impounded. A Monaco judge, Juge Philippe Narmino, has ordered that all three BAR cars to be seized after Sunday's race. The judgement, handed out this past Wednesday, comes after two Montreal business men, France Corbeil and Jean Langevin, who operate a company called PPGI from Monaco are suing BAR for $3.2 million.

When Martin Leclerc, a local journalist, approached David Richard with this latest injunction, Richards knew nothing about it. According to BAR lawyers, PPGI tried, unsuccessfully, to have the cars seized on 13 May, but were denied by another judge.

Richards seemed to be very surprised that PPGI had obtained another request. Richard's has apparently phoned the team lawyers to prepare €500,000 and to be ready to fly to Monaco to resolve this matter.

PPGI was used as intermediary back in 1999, and was to receive between 500K and 900K $USD a year from 1999 to 2003. A draft written by BAR's lawyer, Nigel Rivers, was made, but never signed between the parties (France Corbeil at PPGI, and Craig Pollock, Rick Gorne and Julian Jakobi for BAR) because minor modifications were to be made to it. Several meetings were held afterwards, but the contract was never sealed.

PPGI's lawyers have in their possession BAR's financial statements for 2001 and BAT's for 2002. It's reported that BAR currently has a debt of $228 million towards team financiers British American Tobacco.