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Lotus settles with ex-CEO Dany Bahar, avoids London High Court

Five years after it began, it appears the Dany Bahar tenure at Lotus is finally over. After former Lotus owner Proton brought in the ex-Ferrari and Red Bull marketing savant to run the company in 2009, everything had gone pear-shaped by 2012: Proton had been sold to Malaysian auto supplier DRB-Hicom, who suspended Bahar and then fired him for what it said were expense-account transgressions (although Bob Lutz reportedly said something different).
The separation led to the expected suit and countersuit, Lotus going after Bahar to get its money back, Bahar filing a $10.6-million suit againt Lotus for wrongful termination and potential bonus money. The case was set to go to trial next month but both parties have settled, the terms undisclosed, a DRB-Hicom statement saying only that "the parties involved in the legal suit have signed a Settlement Agreement and Release... and have agreed to withdraw their claims against each other."
Now that that bit of housecleaning is all cleared up, can new CEO Jean-Marc Gales please get our Esprit?

Lotus getting into the motorcycle business

Lotus founder Colin Chapman is famously quoted as saying something to the effect of "Simplify, then add lightness." We're a bit amazed that it took this long, but someone appears to be taking that message to heart at the British marque, losing a couple of wheels, a clutter of bodywork and a whole mess of weight. No, Lotus isn't planning another spindly Seven-style trackday racer, it's getting into motorcycles.
Well, sort of. As an automaker, Lotus apparently isn't directly behind this two-wheeled effort, but it does appear to have officially lent its brand and logo to a new company, Lotus Motorcycles, which counts former Volkswagen Group designer Daniel Simon, Germany's Holzer Group and auto racing team Kodewa among its partners. The latter builds and races Lotus' T128 Le Mans Prototype in the World Endurance Championship series.
The new company is touting an as-yet unseen motorcycle, a racing-inspired "hyper bike" called C-01, releasing only the image above - a carbon fiber fuel tank trimmed in Lotus' trademark black and gold livery. Details are tough to come by, but the project is said to include a powertrain good for around 200 horsepower and construction involving titanium, carbon fiber and aerospace-grade steel.

Former CEO Bahar files $10.6M suit against Lotus

File this one under "not surprising in the least." Fired Lotus CEO Dany Bahar is reportedly suing his former employers for some $10.6 million, claiming that the automaker and its Malaysian owner, DRB, broke the law when they dismissed him. According to a report by Bloomberg Businessweek, DRB and Lotus will defend themselves in court rather than settling, including filing a countersuit against the former top executive.
Bahar, 40, was canned on June 7, about two weeks after Lotus suspended him pending an investigation into his conduct. The report cites a Kuala Lumpur stock exchange filing as its source of the information; the filing also indicates that DRB has decided against selling Lotus, despite continuing losses.