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05 Aug 14
14:37
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05 Apr 06
Has Bernie bribed Bavaria to end bribery trial?
F1 boss Ecclestone pays to end bribery trial
A German court has agreed to end the bribery trial of Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone in exchange for a $100m (£60m) payment from him.
Mr Ecclestone's offer was based on an existing provision in German law.
Earlier on Tuesday German prosecutors accepted the offer from the 83-year-old billionaire who dominates motor racing.
He went on trial in April, accused of paying a German banker 33m euros (£26m; $44m) to ensure that a company he favoured could buy a stake in F1.
He denies wrongdoing.
The ruling means he walks free from the district court in Munich and can continue running the sport. It also means Mr Ecclestone is found neither guilty nor innocent.
His personal wealth is put at $4.2bn by Forbes, which ranks him as the 12th richest UK billionaire.
If found guilty, he could have faced a 10-year jail term and the end of his decades-long dominance of motor racing.
Gerhard Gribkowski , seen here at the start of his trial in October 2011, is now serving a prison sentence
A BayernLB banker, Gerhard Gribkowsky, was allegedly paid by Mr Ecclestone to ensure the F1 stake was bought by a company that he favoured, so that he would remain in charge of the sport.
Gribkowsky was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in 2012 for accepting bribes.
Mr Ecclestone says the payment was given to Gribkowsky after the banker threatened to make false claims about the F1 boss's tax status.
Prosecutors said Mr Ecclestone's advanced age and other mitigating circumstances gave grounds to accept the $100m offer.
Me Ecclestone has attended most of the hearings in person and arrived at the courthouse on Tuesday in a limousine, looking relaxed and accompanied by his wife, Fabiana Flosi.
Bernie Ecclestone has dominated the F1 business for decades
Asked by Judge Peter Noll if he could raise the $100m, Mr Ecclestone replied "yes". When asked if the payment could be made within a week, his defence lawyer, Sven Thomas, said: "That's do-able."
Judge Noll ruled that $99m would go to the Bavarian state coffers while $1m would be donated to a children's hospital. The sum is believed to be a record for such a payment.
Court spokesperson Andrea Titz said Mr Ecclestone: "The court did not consider a conviction overwhelmingly likely from the present point of view.
"With this type of ending... there is no ruling on guilt or innocence of the defendant."
'Really insolent'
Under German law defendants can in certain circumstances "buy" termination of a trial.
The legal proviso exists in order to ease the burden on the courts and to deal with cases where reaching a judgment could prove difficult.
However a lawyer quoted by the Spiegelonline website, Franz Bielefeld, said it was unusual for the clause to be invoked in mid-trial - more often it is done before a trial starts.
Former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, of the Liberal FDP party, criticised use of the loophole in the Ecclestone case, saying it was "not just bad taste - it's really insolent".
She said it allowed rich people to go free, whereas the less well-heeled could face prison.
F1 boss Ecclestone pays to end bribery trial
A German court has agreed to end the bribery trial of Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone in exchange for a $100m (£60m) payment from him.
Mr Ecclestone's offer was based on an existing provision in German law.
Earlier on Tuesday German prosecutors accepted the offer from the 83-year-old billionaire who dominates motor racing.
He went on trial in April, accused of paying a German banker 33m euros (£26m; $44m) to ensure that a company he favoured could buy a stake in F1.
He denies wrongdoing.
The ruling means he walks free from the district court in Munich and can continue running the sport. It also means Mr Ecclestone is found neither guilty nor innocent.
His personal wealth is put at $4.2bn by Forbes, which ranks him as the 12th richest UK billionaire.
If found guilty, he could have faced a 10-year jail term and the end of his decades-long dominance of motor racing.
Gerhard Gribkowski , seen here at the start of his trial in October 2011, is now serving a prison sentence
A BayernLB banker, Gerhard Gribkowsky, was allegedly paid by Mr Ecclestone to ensure the F1 stake was bought by a company that he favoured, so that he would remain in charge of the sport.
Gribkowsky was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in 2012 for accepting bribes.
Mr Ecclestone says the payment was given to Gribkowsky after the banker threatened to make false claims about the F1 boss's tax status.
Prosecutors said Mr Ecclestone's advanced age and other mitigating circumstances gave grounds to accept the $100m offer.
Me Ecclestone has attended most of the hearings in person and arrived at the courthouse on Tuesday in a limousine, looking relaxed and accompanied by his wife, Fabiana Flosi.
Bernie Ecclestone has dominated the F1 business for decades
Asked by Judge Peter Noll if he could raise the $100m, Mr Ecclestone replied "yes". When asked if the payment could be made within a week, his defence lawyer, Sven Thomas, said: "That's do-able."
Judge Noll ruled that $99m would go to the Bavarian state coffers while $1m would be donated to a children's hospital. The sum is believed to be a record for such a payment.
Court spokesperson Andrea Titz said Mr Ecclestone: "The court did not consider a conviction overwhelmingly likely from the present point of view.
"With this type of ending... there is no ruling on guilt or innocence of the defendant."
'Really insolent'
Under German law defendants can in certain circumstances "buy" termination of a trial.
The legal proviso exists in order to ease the burden on the courts and to deal with cases where reaching a judgment could prove difficult.
However a lawyer quoted by the Spiegelonline website, Franz Bielefeld, said it was unusual for the clause to be invoked in mid-trial - more often it is done before a trial starts.
Former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, of the Liberal FDP party, criticised use of the loophole in the Ecclestone case, saying it was "not just bad taste - it's really insolent".
She said it allowed rich people to go free, whereas the less well-heeled could face prison.
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quelle surprise
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Bernie (F1) escapes jail.
of course he does. |
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So he has paid a bribe to get off a charge of bribery?!
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Exactly TB. You've got to laugh at it. Incredible and upfront.
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... but they bang on about someone cheating the dole
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german law
oh dear |
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What's the problem mac.
If someone is caught cheating the dole they too would have the option to pay £60m to get the charges dropped. Same rules apply to us all.  |
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.... That`s a lot of Buckie akabula
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Bernie slips under the radar
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He could walk under it
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mitigating circumstances
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he likes to dress up in Nazi uniform while being whipped
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oh no that's his frind Max
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freund
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If someone is caught cheating the dole they too would have the option to pay £60m to get the charges dropped.
his personal wealth is 4bn (i wonder what "sharp business" practices he used to get that), so he has paid 0.015% of his wealth, so if dole scrounger had, say for arguments sake 10k, (do they have anything in reality?), they could get off in your world by paying a 150 quid fine  |
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Oh dear.
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I don't understand how such an innocent man, as he kept telling us all, would pay $60m to have the charges dropped!!
Miscarriage of justice. Here is a man who would never stoop to such things. His wealth is all accountable and clean. F1 is clean. The Mcanns are innocent. Rooney only eats salad. And Man Utd glory hunters fans are a charming and knowledgeable bunch of people. |
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You aren't a maths teacher are you Brendan?
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Money talks ......So?....what's new?
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ars3holes
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Now that he's off the hook he says he regrets paying the money because he was innocent all along.
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Guardian :
The Formula One chief, Bernie Ecclestone, has declared himself "a bit of an idiot" for paying a £60m settlement to bring an end to his bribery trial. The president and chief executive of Formula One agreed with German prosecutors on Tuesday to pay the record sum to end his trial, a district court in Munich confirmed. The defence has denied accusations that he had bought his freedom. The Formula One boss went on trial in Munich in April over allegations that he bribed a former German banker as part of the sale of a major stake in the motor sport business eight years ago. Although slightly lighter in the pocket, given Ecclestone's worth is estimated at about £3bn-£4bn, he was nonetheless relieved that he could put this period of his life finally behind him. Ecclestone, 83, told PA: "The bottom line is it's been three and a half years of aggravation, travelling, meeting lawyers, and God knows what else, so it is good it is out of the way. "This trial has been going on for two days a week and it was going to go on until October. When you're trying to run businesses it's not easy trying to resolve things when you're dealing with lawyers. "In the end what has happened today is good and bad; the good is the judge more or less said I was acquitted, and they [the prosecution] really didn't have a case. "So I was a bit of an idiot to do what I did to settle because it wasn't with the judge, it was with the prosecutors. "Anyway, it's done and finished, so it's all right. I'm contented, it's all fine. "This now allows me to do what I do best, which is running F1. "Another three months out would have been bad. I've been working weekends to catch up with what I've been missing during the week. "I've not really noticed, but it's probably taken its toll a little bit." The Munich court said in a statement that $99m (£59m) would be paid to the German treasury and a further $1m to a German children's hospice charity. The money will be paid within a week, it added, after which the trial will officially be abandoned. "The abandonment is neither a 'deal' nor a 'settlement', even less so a 'buying out,'" said Ecclestone's defence team in a joint statement. Prosecutors said they had based their decision partly on the defendant's age and willingness to cooperate. Ecclestone was accused of having given Bayern Landesbank's chief risk officer, Gerhard Gribkowsky, $44m in 2006 in order to ease the sale of the bank's share to a company that had guaranteed to keep Ecclestone as chief executive. Throughout the trial, Ecclestone admitted paying the money but denied it was a bribe, saying he paid it to silence Gribkowsky who had threatened to report him over irregularities in his tax affairs. Gribkowsky was sentenced in 2012 to eight and a half years for tax evasion, breach of duty and accepting bribes. In a statement explaining its decision to abandon proceedings, the court said it had "considerable doubts" that Ecclestone knew Gribkowsky had held the position at the German state bank at the time of the alleged bribe. "Accordingly, a prosecution of the accused due to bribery is not probable as things stand," the court said, despite admitting that all evidence in the case had not yet been heard. Last week Ecclestone's legal team informed the court that he was willing to pay €25m (£19.8m) to Bayern LB in a separate settlement. The bank, which had been seeking €400m in damages from Ecclestone, had rejected an earlier offer of €50m in 2012, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported. German law provides for some criminal cases to be settled with smaller punishments, such as fines, though the size of the payment in the Ecclestone case has led some to question a system that in effect favours rich defendants. A paragraph in the German criminal code allows for trials to be ended under conditions that are "appropriate for resolving the public interest in a prosecution," as long as the gravity of wrongdoing does not outweigh this. In practice, wealthy defendants have in the past used this clause to buy their way out of criminal trials. But no one has ever paid so high a sum as has been agreed with Ecclestone. The agreement, which his defence lawyers said kept his presumed innocence intact, means Ecclestone is able to continue unchallenged at the helm of the multibillion-pound business, which he is credited with building up over the past four decades. If he had been sentenced, Ecclestone, a leading figure in the sport since the 1970s, could have faced up to 10 years in prison and would most likely have been forced to step down. During the trial, Ecclestone handed over the day-to-day running of Formula One to his chief legal officer, Sacha Woodward-Hill. Now Ecclestone is once again free to take control, with no sign of the veteran sports magnate voluntarily giving up any of his considerable power. |
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You have to admire somebody who can raise £60million in cash within 7 days!
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83?..more like 97..weaselly looking creep of a man
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one rule for the rich, another rule for the........
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well at least he still has his own hair.
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Obscene
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German law prostituting itself at a price of £60m for Bernie Ecclestone to take down their pants, and we think our courts are soft.
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