AUTOSPORT.com's legal expert analyses the French court's ruling that the lifetime ban handed to Flavio Briatore by the FIA's World Motor Sport Council was "illegal"

On January 5, 2010, the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris, handed its crosstown neighbour, the FIA from #8 Place de la Concorde, a stunning defeat. In a scathing nine-page ruling, the Paris court declared illegal the lifetime ban from motorsport imposed on Flavio Briatore by the FIA's top policy-making body, the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC).

The WMSC imposed the sanction because of Briatore's alleged involvement in fixing the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix in favour of Renault, the French team. Is this a French farce or is there something important going on here?

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