Dany Bahar, the CEO of Group Lotus, has been suspended by the new owners of the parent company, DRB-Hicom.
Bahar was deeply involved in the controversy concerning the two Lotus teams, beginning in 2010, when Lotus Racing was racing in F1. That team later became Caterham, but Group Lotus had a deal with Tony Fernandes, the team principal of Caterham, to use the Lotus branding. Fernandes wanted to use the Team Lotus name and logo for 2011, but Proton, the previous owners of Group Lotus, said no. A court case decided that Fernandes could use the Team Lotus roundel and the name, but not ‘Lotus’ on its own. Read more on that here.
Today the announcement came, that Dany Bahar has been suspended from his post, “while an investigation is carried out into a complaint about his conduct.”
A statement from Group Lotus read:
“As a result of a number of media inquiries, Group Lotus plc (“Lotus”) can today confirm that, following an operational review, chief executive Dany Bahar has been temporarily suspended from his role to facilitate an investigation into a complaint about his conduct made by Lotus’ penultimate parent company, DRB-HICOM Berhad.”
“The penultimate holding company would like to stress it is business as usual at Lotus. We fully support the company and will continue to support Lotus in its business endeavours and development.”
