AFAIK all E70s, regardless of location, have a push button start/stop and the joystick style shifter. IOW the Start/Stop and Shifter mechanisms are entirely electrical - just fancy "normally off or on" push buttons. All it takes to screw up this system is an unintended short/open ANYWHERE in the circuit(s). So the problem could be in the manual controllers, the wiring or the 'computers/software' that actually control nearly every aspect of a E70.

FWIW what you guys are describing sounds a lot like what an E70 does when someone simply presses the start/stop button or bumps the shifter at speed as described in this thread about emergency shut off. I am not suggesting that these reports are caused by an operator error. Just that the result would be the same. And a dealer may or may not find that a handy excuse for not doing a through search for an intermittent electrical problem.

Funf Dreisig

Edit: IIRC from driving in Oz and the UK, many of the driver controls are not mirrored: e.g.. the foot pedals, shift patterns for manual trannys, etc. But I would think the E70 shifter would be mirrored because of the location of the thumb button. IOW right hand drive E70s may have different shifters and all most certainly have different wiring harnesses than the E70s in the US, Europe, etc. So...

It would be very interesting to know whether any left hand drive E70's have had this problem.