Mar.2 (GMM) The European Commission and a key politician have both confirmed that a potential investigation into F1 has in fact not been ruled out.
Several publications this week claimed that a letter from the competition commissioner to Anneliese Dodds showed that an investigation will definitely not take place.
But a spokesman for Dodds told F1 business journalist Christian Sylt that the publications had “annoyingly” got their reports fundamentally wrong.
“I’m going to be speaking with Anneliese about all of this when she arrives in Brussels later today and we’ll think of the next steps,” he said.
That next step has now emerged, with Dodds releasing an official statement declaring that the commissioner’s letter did not rule out an investigation into Liberty Media’s takeover of F1 or the FIA’s alleged conflict of interest.
“The Commissioner has not ruled out any investigation into competition concerns in the sport,” said Dodds, “not least because there is still an ongoing investigation arising from complaints from Force India and Sauber.”
And in Sylt’s latest report for Forbes, a source close to the European Commission said the body retains its “ability to investigate the behaviour of these companies that could be potentially against EU competition rules”.