Bernie Ecclestone claims to have paid only 14 million pounds

Similarly, in another of his statements to the editor of Pitpass, the F1’s chief financial officer revisits his claims that he transferred this amount to accounts located in Mauritius and the British Virgin Islands. He now asserts that this transfer took place to a single Austrian account and that it was Gerhard Gribkowsky’s lawyer at the time who subsequently made the transfers to tax havens.

However, he maintains that it was not about corruption in the context of the sale of F1 commercial rights but rather a payment related to blackmail. Indeed, the German banker allegedly threatened to contact the British tax authorities regarding the management of the Bambino Holdings trust, where Bernie Ecclestone had placed the F1 shares. This maneuver was intended to protect his wife Slavica in case he were to die. Bernie Ecclestone and his lawyers set up a financial arrangement through several companies and holdings: on February 6, 1996, 100% of the shares he then held in F1 through F.O.C.A Administration (now known as Formula One Management or FOM) were placed in a company named Petara. But this company was itself owned by another company, SLEC (a name formed with the first two letters of Slavica Ecclestone). The scheme didn’t stop there since SLEC was owned by Bambino Holdings, which was meant to ensure the financial future of his wife and their two young children.

The reason the property was transferred to Slavica Ecclestone is that she was of Croatian nationality and had not lived the necessary 18 years to be considered a British resident. In these conditions, she would have had to pay 40% of the assets received as an inheritance upon her husband’s death. However, in 1999, the total assets of SLEC were valued at 2.4 billion pounds, which would have resulted in a check to the British tax authorities for a billion pounds. Gerhard Gribkowsky then took advantage of the situation by claiming he could write a letter stating that it was, in fact, Bernie Ecclestone who controlled Bambino Holdings, and therefore, his wife owed this impressive sum. Following the advice of his lawyers, he decided to pay the 27 million pounds requested by the banker to avoid any risk of a potential tax audit, even though he declared he had nothing to hide and would be forced to pay such an amount upon his death.

He claims that he did not report Gerhard Gribkowsky for blackmail for the simple reason that there was no material evidence that such blackmail took place: «You need witnesses or someone to say “I heard him ask” and someone who is going to shake you down won’t be stupid enough for that to happen.» But what’s even more astonishing is that Pitpass claimed last Sunday that Bernie Ecclestone confirmed the figure of 27 million pounds sterling, only to declare four days later that the sum had almost been halved… As for the 41.5 million dollars received during the sale, he told the Telegraph that it was just a 5% commission received during the sale of F1 and that it had been approved by the BayernLB board. Under these circumstances, why did the Munich prosecutor’s office declare last week: «According to the results of the investigation, this concerns dirty money, disguised under two fake consulting contracts with companies based in Mauritius and the British Virgin Islands. These payments would not have been requested if it weren’t for the corruption of the accused. The Bayerische Landesbank suffered a loss of almost 66.5 million dollars through the conduct of the accused.»?

This is just another episode in this lengthy affair, which could grow even larger since, according to information from Spiegel, half a dozen advisors to the two men could also be charged.

With the participation of RacingBusiness.fr