London - Renault has completed its takeover of the Lotus Formula One team and paid debts to creditors including the British tax authorities, the London High Court heard on Monday.
“We have a completion of the share purchase,” a lawyer for the French car company told the judge, Mr Justice Birss, at a hearing that formally dismissed an insolvency petition that would have put the team into administration.
“We have the keys, so to speak,” he added.
Lawyers for Proton, the Malaysian car company that owns the Lotus sportscar brand, did not attend the hearing with the court informed that the petitioner had either been paid or reached an arrangement.
The case had been adjourned repeatedly to allow Renault time to decide its F1 future and complete the takeover of a team that employs some 480 people at its factory in central England.
Renault, an engine supplier to former world champion Red Bull this season, is returning to F1 as a full constructor by buying back the team it previously owned.
The team was sold by Renault to Luxembourg-based Genii Capital, which renamed it Lotus, after a Singapore Grand Prix race-fixing scandal that rocked the sport in 2009.
As Benetton and then Renault, the team had won world titles with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso.
This season Genii injected only enough cash into Lotus to keep the team on the grid, while leaving a string of creditors waiting to be paid.
Bailiffs impounded the cars after the Belgian Grand Prix in August and the team was denied access to the paddock hospitality in Japan due to unpaid bills.
Reuters