Concorde Agreement - Fourth Concorde Agreement (1997)

Fourth Concorde Agreement (1997)

In 1995 the FIA decided to transfer Formula One's commercial rights from FOCA to Formula One Administration for a 14-year period. In exchange, Ecclestone would provide an annual payment. McLaren, Williams and Tyrrell, protested by rejecting the proposed Concorde Agreement (negotiations for which started as early as 1993). Ken Tyrrell in particular was enraged by the fact that Ecclestone, as President of FOCA had negotiated the transfer of the rights from the organization to his own company. Tyrrell also objected to the addendum to the Agreement being secret, arguing that secrecy surrounding the agreement benefited only Ecclestone (by weakening the bargaining power of the other parties).

The three teams refused to sign the proposed Concorde Agreement, initially with the support of the remaining teams. However on September 5, 1996 the new Concorde Agreement was signed by all the teams except McLaren, Williams and Tyrrell. The agreement was to run from January 1, 1997 to 2002.