Motor Sport: Renault's Formula One team have suspended the engineer who brought McLaren technical details to the team and resulted in them being charged by the FIA with possessing confidential information.
Yesterday the FIA ordered the team to appear in Monaco before the World Motor Sport Council on December 6th, to answer a charge in relation to a breach of article 151c of the International Sporting Code.
Renault moved to defend themselves today by revealing they suspended the individual involved, informed the FIA and McLaren, erased all records of the information and returned the original copies to their Formula One rivals and launched an investigation.
In a statement the team said: "On September 6th it came to our attention that an engineer (Phil Mackereth) who joined the team from McLaren in September 2006 had brought with him some information that was considered to be proprietary to McLaren.
"This information was contained on old style floppy discs and included copies of some McLaren engineering drawings and some technical spreadsheets. This information was loaded at the request of Mr Mackereth onto his personal directory on the Renault F1 Team file system.
"This was done without the knowledge of anyone in authority in the team."
Renault's charge is the second 'spying' row to hit the sport this year after McLaren were given a record €70 million fine having been found guilty of a similar charge in September.
The team were also thrown out of the constructors' championship after they were found to be in possession of technical information belonging to Ferrari.