Bernie Ecclestone To Bribe His Way Out Of Bribery Charges

The allegations against Bernie Ecclestone were concerning a bribe he paid to a German banker in 2006 to undervalue the Formula One assets of BayernLB, a bank in Germany. The reason he allegedly paid the £27million sum to a German banker was so that a company called CVC, which he favoured and who had promised him he would keep his job, could buy their stake in Formula One. This bribe upset another German company called Constantin Medien, who claim they missed out on a large sum of commission because of the bribe. As it always is with business dealings it is all very boring, so I have just summarised it briefly, and probably inaccurately. However, if found guilty of bribery he would have faced up to ten years in jail. To avoid that he and his lawyer probably had a conversation something like this:

BE: I need to make these allegations go away, that's why I've got you down here at great expense.

L: Okay Bernie, first thing I want to know... Are these allegations true? I just need to know so I can build a case that avoids any of the facts as much as possible if they are.

BE: Of course they are true, they don't call me the Godfather of Formula One for nothing.

L: They don't! Do they?

BE: No... but I wish they would. I'm always up to something, I have fingers in all sorts of dodgy pies, and I once put a Freddo's head in someone's bed.

L: What the hell are you going on about? What the hell is a Freddo?

BE: It is a small chocolate frog.

L: What are you talking about damn chocolate frogs?

BE: They're really tasty, and because they're bigger than me they can be well intimidating too!

L: *Indecipherable shouting and swearing*

BE: I take it you want to get back on topic?

L: YES! You blithering idiot!

*Long pause as the lawyer calms down*

L: So you're guilty. Everyone knows it. Plus you've admitted to paying this Gerhard Gribkowsky character the money in court, although you're claiming he forced you into it somehow.

BE: Yep.

L: Okay.... So I guess our only option is to bribe the courts to make the charges go away.

BE: Can we do that?

L: Yep, there's some bullshit German provision in courts that means the wealthy can get away with loads of things as long as they're prepared to pay a bribe!

BE: Good news then, I am ridiculously wealthy. Now who wants to go break some more laws with me?!

Astonishingly this it true (not the conversation part though... I just made that up), although officially it is being called a 'payment'. A payment of $100million that will go straight into the German treasury and make everything okay again. This means that all is once again well in the world. Apart from the fact that this proviso unfairly favours the wealthy! It favours the people who can afford to pay bribes to get away with bribery. How can you be taken to court over something, pay some money legally to end proceedings, and then be allowed to walk free without being found either guilty nor innocent? Especially when the bloke you have bribed is currently serving a prison sentence for accepting bribes!

The unusual proviso he relied upon to be found to be 'guinnocelty'* is supposed to be enacted to ease the burden on German courts, but only in circumstances where the case looks nigh on impossible to resolve. I am just going out on a hunch here and suggest that this probably was not one of those occasions. Here is why I have my doubts: (just nabbed these quotes from this Guardian article)

"The chief executive of Formula One was accused of having paid the former Bayern LB chief risk officer Gerhard Gribkowsky $44m in 2006 to ease the sale of the bank's share to a company that had guaranteed to keep Ecclestone in his job. He has admitted paying the money but denied it was a bribe."
In what way is that not a bribe? He paid another companies employee some money, with the intention to get him to make the sale of his employers assets to another company go through. Even if his claim that it was to silence him over "irregularities in his tax affairs" then that surely is also a bribe? A bride to stop one rich chap who was guilty of tax evasion from grassing on another rich chap (allegedly) avoiding tax.

"In an explanation of its decision, the court said it had "considerable doubts" about whether Ecclestone knew Gribkowsky held that particular position at the time of the alleged bribe".
No! That is all nonsense, you would not pay someone £27million if you didn't know what position he held and whether he could help you. That would be madness. What did Bernie think he do then? Did he think he was a humble cleaner? Did he just want to be nice to some chap on minimum wage, but surprisingly drinking in an expensive bar in designer clothes?! Rubbish! Rich people do not give away their money, they hoard it until there is nothing left for the rest of us.

""Accordingly, a prosecution of the accused due to bribery is not probable as things stand," the court said, despite admitting that all the evidence in the case had not yet been heard."
The prosecution wasn't probable presumably because the Bavarian state couldn't resist saying yes to that big cheque waving in their face. There really is nothing like bending over backwards for the rich now is there.

So Bernie Ecclestone walked free despite in the judges statement highlighting the fact he had "made a "corrupt" deal. And he had been not "reliable or truthful" during the case in London". All made possible by his wealth, some technicalities, and a dodgy loophole in the German courts that favours the rich.

I just hope they will be as nice to me when I go over, commit a crime, bribe a police officer to get away with it, get caught out because that police officer has been caught taking bribes, and then after some, but crucially not all evidence is heard, wave a cheque for £10 in their faces walk away 'guinnocelty'.

Of course I could just be being a pessimist and dear old Bernie could be truly innocent. That was not really the point of this post. He is rich, that is reason enough for me to dislike the man. I really couldn't care less about his guilt. I just found it ridiculous (but not all that surprising) that a legal system, in a developed part of the world, could get away with having a provision built into it that allows the wealthy to just buy their way out of trouble... more so than usual anyway.

*Had to mix guilty and innocent together because I did not have a word to describe this outcome.