Ahead of next week's legal case, which sees Max Mosley suing the News of the World for breach of privacy, the FIA President has been cleared to seek exemplary damages from the British tabloid.

Exemplary damages are damages not awarded in order to compensate the plaintiff, but to reform or deter the defendant and similar persons from pursuing a course of action such as that which damaged the plaintiff.

Ahead of next week's case, which gets underway on Monday (July 7), the preliminary hearing has been taking place in the High court this week in front of Mr Justice Eady.

Lawyers for the News of the World had argued that the privacy laws only allowed Mosley to seek compensatory damages, however, ahead of what many believe will be a landmark case, Justice Eady said that this was an area of developing jurisprudence and that a ruling should be made once all the facts in the case have been heard.

James Price, QC, for Mr Mosley, said that "no reasonable person" could have assumed there was a Nazi theme to the orgy, which took place in March, while the News of the World insists that there were Nazi connotations and that consequently it was justified in publishing the story because of Mr Mosley's public role.