04/04/2008
NEWS STORY
A spokesman for the FIA has tonight revealed that Max Mosley is to sue the News of the World for unlimited damages following an article it ran in last Sunday's edition of the British tabloid.
The spokesman told Pitpass: "Lawyers representing Mr Mosley have today served proceedings against the News of the World claiming unlimited A spokesman for the FIA has tonight revealed that Max Mosley is to sue the News of the World for unlimited damages following an article it ran in last Sunday's edition of the British tabloid.
The spokesman told Pitpass: "Lawyers representing Mr Mosley have today served proceedings against the News of the World claiming unlimited damages."
Since the newspaper first published its report on Sunday, alleging that the FIA President had visited a London brothel to indulge in a Nazi-based sex-romp, the world of F1 has been in turmoil, with things gradually building to a head. Over the course of the last twelve hours, ADAC, the German motoring organization, has urged Mosley to resign, followed by the Dutch federation KNAF, America's AAA and Israel's Automobile and Touring Club.
Despite Mosley's claim that there were no Nazi connotations to the matter, F1 manufacturers and now members of the FIA have been turning against him, clearly suggesting that they think otherwise.
Mosley has called an extraordinary meeting of the FIA's general assembly in order to discuss "the widespread publicity following an apparently illegal invasion of the FIA president's privacy", as it is the "invasion of privacy" that Mosley claims is the issue. However, for some strange reason he is not suing for libel.
As one observer has pointed out to Pitpass, with the core issue being the suggestion that the sex romp revolved around Nazism - the most sordid part of the whole affair - why isn't Mosley suing for libel? After all, the News of the World used the word Nazi in its headline, and in the body of its article, even suggesting that Mosley walked with a "Nazi swagger". In his letter to various motor sport bodies earlier this week Mosley himself denied there were any Nazi connotations, so why isn't he suing the News of the World for libel?
While the filming of the incident may well be an invasion of his privacy, surely the claim that it is Nazi-related, which is libellous, and the most damaging, is the matter that Mosley should be pursuing.