Lotus have confirmed that it has held talks over the rights to use the Lotus name with Lotus, and will not be commenting further until Lotus and Lotus have come to an agreement over the use of the word Lotus in the future.
The odd dispute arose after the Lotus Racing team severed their ties with the parent Lotus car company, now owned by Malaysian manufacturer Proton, after acquiring the rights to the Team Lotus name from Colin Chapman's era.
Proton insisted that the team did not have the rights to use the Lotus name any longer, while Lotus Racing announced that they would be happy to go to court to verify the legality of their ownership of the Team Lotus branding.
The team confirmed on Thursday that a meeting has taken place between "Proton Adviser" Tun Dr Mahathir and the team's deputy principal Kamarudin Meranun over a resolution to the issue.
Although no resolution has yet been reached, the team said that it would not be making any more public statements over the issue until it is happily resolved.
A statement from the team confirmed that: "In a bid to alleviate the public confusion surrounding the ongoing matter between Lotus Racing and Proton/Group Lotus, Lotus Racing shareholder and Deputy Team Principal Dato' Kamarudin Meranun recently had the opportunity to meet Proton Adviser Tun Dr Mahathir.
"The meeting was to discuss the matter in person and agree a future course of action for Lotus Racing."
It went on: "Lotus Racing believes it is acting within its own rights, and as a result of this meeting, the team will now refrain from making any further comments on the matter.
"This action is upon advice from Tun Dr Mahathir, and it is out of our respect for him that we will act upon his wishes as he has supported us since our inception, and his backing has been invaluable in our growth.
"We are very grateful for having had the opportunity to put forth our case and have complete trust that a fair review will be made, and a decision on the matter will be announced in due course."
The talks came after the Lotus Racing team's chief executive Riad Asmat clarified that the dispute had sprung up over a series of "trivial points", including "t-shirt design approvals of all things".
"Initially there was good cooperation [with Group Lotus] but then issues cropped up after that and it came to a point where they said we were detrimental to their brand and infringed their rights," Asmat muttered earlier this week.
He added: "One of these was about producing t-shirts, which we were told did not follow correct procedures and they terminated our agreement about two weeks ago."
The naming issues follow a series of motorsport expansion announcements by Group Lotus. The team has bought into the ART Grand Prix operations in GP2 and GP3, while the company is also planning to increase their Indycar series commitments and build a new sportscar in time for the 2012 Le Mans 24 Hours.
The company will build an LMP2-class car in time for testing in late 2011, and are also planning to design a Lotus 'bodykit' for the American Indycar series in time for their new chassis rules for the 2012 season.
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