A High Court hearing in London looking into how Mike Coughlan came to be in possession of secret information belonging to Ferrari was cancelled Wednesday when the McLaren- Mercedes chief designer agreed to provide a sworn declaration. Coughlan was suspended by McLaren after the documents were found in a search of his house last week and he has now agreed to provide an affidavit answering the Italian team's queries.

Ferrari have accused Coughlan and his wife Trudy of stealing valuable technical data and said they would not have known about the missing documents had an employee not alerted them.

Ferrari have agreed to withdraw their request to the High Court to make the information and material collected - including the affidavit - in their application against Coughlan, available to the Modena district attorney.