 McLaren rejected the Concorde Agreement of 1997 before signing a new 10-year agreement in 1998.Arguments over the commercial structure and regulations in the sport restarted in the mid-2000s with McLaren and their part-owner Mercedes again amongst teams threatening to start a rival series until 2009 when another Concorde Agreement, effective until the end of 2012, was settled upon.In 2007, McLaren were involved in an espionage controversy after their chief designer Mike Coughlan obtained confidential technical information from Ferrari.