Renault To Pay Lotus Debts By End Of Year After Dec. 16 Takeover

French carmaker Renault "aims to complete its takeover of the Lotus Formula One team on Dec. 16 and pay creditors, including Britain's tax authorities, by the end of the year," according to Alan Baldwin of REUTERS. All parties in a "protracted case brought against struggling Lotus by the Revenue and Customs authority over unpaid tax, with other creditors also represented, agreed to a further adjournment to Dec. 21." A Lotus lawyer said, "We are in a different territory now." After hearing none of the creditors objected to the adjournment that he said was "clearly in the best interests" of all parties, Justice Birss said, "You got away with it ... or rather, it has been got away with." The alternative "would have been to put Lotus into administration." Lotus CEO Matthew Carter, who attended the hearing, said that "the remaining matters were merely procedural." Carter: "It's the 16th for the SPA and they (Renault) are agreeing to pay all the creditors by the 31st" (REUTERS, 12/7).