Henkel Vs Mercedes GP Deal in Doubt

Mercedes GP might lose a quite lucrative deal with their former sponsor from McLaren, Henkel (a Dusseldorf-based adhesives and liquids company), as it seems the new management of the German company did not actually signed the contract in the first place.

The story goes somehow like this: Henkel partnered Mercedes during their last few seasons with McLaren. However, prior to the German car maker announcing their switch in factory support from McLaren to Brawn GP, Henkel's former sponsorship chief had agreed to also switch their sponsorship towards the Brackley based team.

In the meantime, that official has left the company, which technically should not have affected the sponsorship deal between Ross Brawn's team and Henkel in any way. Only it has now emerged that “CEO Kasper Rorsted is refusing to honor the contract because he nor the executive board approved it,” as reported by the GMM news agency, citing the German financial newspaper Handelsblatt.

The findings of the German newspaper are not at all comforting for the Stuttgart based company, as it seems the staff member who initially agreed to the sponsorship switch – and who recently departed from the Dusseldorf company – had some recent troubles with the law.

“The staff member in question is the subject of an embezzlement and fraud investigation, after he faked bills and sold them for 45m euros to debt recovery firms. 11m euros of the allegedly embezzled money is missing,” added the report from the GMM news agency, citing the same newspaper.

In order to make things worst, it seems the company recently issued a suit against the German team, as reported by the Reuters news agency.