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McLaren charged over Stepneygate McLaren bosses have been summoned by world motorsport's governing body, the FIA, to account for their actions in the ongoing Stepneygate scandal. In a statement, the FIA confirmed: 'Representatives of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes have been requested to appear before an extraordinary meeting of the FIA world motor sport council in Paris on July 26. 'The team representatives have been called to answer a charge that between March and July 2007, in breach of Article 151c of the international sporting code, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes had unauthorised possession of documents and confidential information belonging to Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, including information that could be used to design, engineer, build, check, test, develop and/or run a 2007 Ferrari formula one car.' Despite confirming that they had suspended a 'senior technical member of its technical organisation', now known to be designer Mike Coughlan, after 'this individual had personally received a package of technical information from a Ferrari employee at the end of April', McLaren have steadfastly denied any wrongdoing in the scandal. "There is no intellectual property of another grand prix team on our cars, nor will there be, nor has there ever been," Ron Dennis declared at Silverstone. "My own integrity is woven into the fabric of our company and I am now, having supervised a very detailed investigation within our own organisation, able to say that with absolute certainty that as this unfolds over the next few days, people will clearly understand all the facts behind what has been a difficult experience for McLaren." In a statement released last week, the team announced that 'a thorough investigation' had found that 'no Ferrari intellectual property has been passed to any other members of the team or incorporated into its cars.' Such was their confidence in their innocence, McLaren 'invited the FIA to conduct a full review of its cars to satisfy itself that the team has not benefited from any intellectual property of another competitor.' Whilst the court summons would apparently indicate that the FIA have accepted that invitation, it is thought that the focus of their enquiry will be the question of when - and how - Jonathan Neale, their managing director, first became aware that Coughlan had the Ferrari documents in his possession. Should the team be found guilty of breaching the sporting code, a whole host of potential punishments are at the FIA's disposal - including stringent points penalties that could wreck the World Championship ambitions of both Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. Coughlan himself has refused to comment publicly on the crisis, but, after a court hearing in London this week, agreed to provide a sworn statements revealing how he obtained 780 pages of Ferrari technical information.