Convicted Toyota Spies Insist On Their Innocence
By Dale Calkins
April 30 2007
The men convicted of stealing copyrighted Ferrari data for use at Toyota, maintain they are innocent. Mauro Iacconi was found guilty of industrial espionage, though he and Angelo Santini will appeal the verdict in an attempt to avoid jail time and further damage to their reputation.
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| The men convicted of stealing copyrighted Ferrari data for use at Toyota, maintain they are innocent. Mauro Iacconi was found guilty of industrial espionage, though he and Angelo Santini will appeal the verdict in an attempt to avoid jail time and further damage to their reputation. The two men left Ferrari in 2000 to work for Toyota, taking with them a CD with technical data on the Ferrari cars. This information was later used to help design the 2002 and 2003 Toyota machine. This was especially obvious as the two cars looked almost identical. Their performance may not have been anywhere close, though that is a sign of Toyota's inability to build a fast car, rather than of the similarities between the designs. This is what Iacconi had to say about his conviction: "It's true that the Toyota TF103 looked like a copy of the F2002, also because of its red colour, but it's normal for F1 cars to resemble the winning machine. In the trial, my last aerodynamic chief at Maranello, Nick Tombazis, defended me by highlighting the fact that the Ferrari parts found in the CD-ROM were obsolete and unusable, so there was no point copying them.Who knows, maybe the whole point of the accusation was to put a stop to the brain drain from Ferrari. I'm known in my village for the social work I do; I don't want a stain I don't deserve. At 43 years of age I hope I'll be able to find a job soon, even if it's not car-related, just to start over. This story has burned me out." Quite frankly, Mr. Iacconi's appeal is ridiculous. He and Santini stole copyrighted data and took it to be used at the Toyota team. Regardless of whether the data was used or not, they still took it and had the intention of using it. He may be corrected in stating that it is natural for Formula 1 cars to look like the winning machine, though that does not excuse the fact that he stole the copyrighted material, with the intent to use it for work on another car. I do not really care about either men's reputation or whether or not they will be unpopular in their villages, that is irrelevant. If you are involved in illegal actions, you should pay for them, and pay they will. |
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April 30, 2007 |
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