The 2007 Formula One espionage controversy, also called as “Spygate” or “Stepneygate” involved allegations that the McLaren Formula One team was passed confidential technical information from the Ferrari team, which was again passed on to the Renault F1 team. The original allegations involved allegations made by the Ferrari Formula One team against a former employee Nigel Stepney, a senior McLaren engineer, Mike Coughlan, and his wife Trudy Coughlan regarding the theft of technical information. The second FIA(Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) hearing into the matter took place on 13 September 2007, and resulted in several penalties for McLaren which included the team’s exclusion from the 2007 Constructors’ Championship and a record-breaking fine of $100 million (USD). In the week beginning 17 June 2007, at the 2007 US Grand Prix, Ferrari filed a formal complaint against Stepney, leading to the beginning of a criminal investigation by the Modena district attorney in Italy. On 3 July 2007,Ferrari completed its internal investigation and had dismissed Stepney as a result. On the day Ferrari had announced Stepney’s dismissal, it also announced it had taken action against “an engineer from the Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes team”,who was later named as Mike Coughlan and was later suspended by McLaren as a result. Coughlan is alleged to be in possession of 780 pages of Ferrari documentation and his wife is alleged to have taken them to a photocopying shop near Woking. Ferrari were caught unawares that their technical information had been stolen until they received a tip from an employee working in the photocopying shop. The staff member saw that the documents were confidential and which belonged to Ferrari and, after copying them, decided to contact the team’s headquarters in Italy.
However, on 10 July 2007, Ferrari reached an agreement with Mr. and Mrs. Coughlan under which Ferrari dropped its High Court case in return for their full disclosure of all they know about the case and a promise of future cooperation. An announcement made by McLaren based on its own internal investigation had revealed that no Ferrari materials or data were ever been in the possession of any McLaren employee other than Coughlan. Any other member of the team did not know the fact that he held at his home-classified materials from Ferrari.