Cologne's DA: Toyota Hold Stolen Ferrari Data

The district attorney of Cologne, Germany, where the Formula One operation of Toyota Motorsport is located, has accused the company of obtaining and using stolen Ferrari computer data.

The DA, Siegmar Raupach, was interviewed by Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport, on the ongoing affair of suspected industrial espionage against Ferrari. The investigation has so far lead to two suspects facing charges, including that of smuggling ("fencing") computer data from the Ferrari factory in Maranello.

However, while Toyota had maintained throughout the affair to have no connection to this investigation, Raupach told the Italian newspaper today that Toyota in fact were found to be using data stolen from Ferrari.

According to Raupach, the stolen data - in the form of a computer programme or source code - was first discovered in a police search at Toyota's premises, a year ago.

"We organized the search after a request of collaboration by Modena's district attorney, and two members of the Italian police took part," Raupach said. "[These] two policemen had been comprehensively instructed at Ferrari, in Maranello, so that they could be absolutely able to find, on Toyota's computers, the software programmes that were allegedly stolen from Ferrari.

"They found what they were looking for: a considerable amount of software, copied onto the wind tunnel's programs at Toyota."

Raupach, however, says the Japanese company have now taken legal actions to block this data from being returned to Italy, claiming it has already been embedded in their own, original software which would mean, according to Raupach, giving Ferrari "more than was stolen from them."

According to Raupach, "[Toyota] said: 'we have copied Ferrari's software programmes into our programmes and, if we now give them back the material, Ferrari will have an advantage. This is because our own programmes are now mixed with theirs and we can't work on them anymore. In other words, the Ferrari software is now mixed with the one belonging to us, and if we give it back, Ferrari will end up with more than what was stolen from them.'"

But legal proceedings at the Cologne tribunal may be delayed, according to the city's DA, as he says the tribunal requested to first see a detailed listing of the programme files' content.

"It's a very difficult thing to do! The amount of material is immense," Raupach told the newspaper. "If we printed out the files we'd need over ten thousand pages, and the sheets would fill up an entire building!

"We are now going to decide how to proceed; we are in talks with the tribunal, let's hope a decision will be taken quickly."