Bernie Ecclestone says F1 ‘worth nothing’ without him in charge

Last updated: November 7, 2013 10:44 pm

Bernie Ecclestone says F1 ‘worth nothing’ without him in charge

By Roger Blitz, Leisure Industries Correspondent

Personal cheques of $10m were made to three Formula One team principals to secure long-term commercial relationships with the sport, the High Court hearing over damages claims against the F1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone has heard. The payments, made in 2001 to Alain Prost, Eddie Jordan and the late Tom Walkinshaw, rather than to the teams they managed, were described as “an odd thing to be doing” by Philip Marshall, QC for plaintiffConstantin Medien, the German media group which is suing Mr Ecclestone and other parties for $140m.Mr Marshall compared the payments to the $44m paid by Mr Ecclestone and Bambino, an Ecclestone family trust, to Gerhard Gribkowsky, former chief risk officer at the bank BayernLB. Mr Gribkowsky was jailed last year on bribery charges for accepting the payments.

They were paid through Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild on the account of Valper Holdings, a subsidiary of Bambino. Mr Ecclestone said he had “not the slightest idea” about the payments.

Mr Marshall asked Mr Ecclestone: “Do you regard the payments as a bribe to someone who was not a public official as something acceptable?”

Mr Ecclestone replied: “I’ll have to think about that. I wish I would have thought about that before today actually.”

Mr Marshall quoted written testimony given to the Gribkowsky trial proceedings in Munich by Harald Glockl, a BLB board member, who said Mr Ecclestone was “a person who put sausages in front of your nose”, and who had given Mr Glockl hope that “he would come out well”.

Mr Ecclestone was quizzed about testimony given by Bambino trustee Luc Argand to Munich prosecutors in 2011. Mr Marshall quoted Mr Argand saying of the $44m payments to Mr Gribkowsky: “There have often been payments of this kind in the past, for example to teams.”

Mr Ecclestone described that as “completely unfair”, saying any money paid to teams was under contract. They were settlements for the so-called Concorde Agreement, which binds the teams to F1.

Constantin Medien is seeking to prove that F1 was undervalued when Bayerische Landesbank sold a 47 per cent stake to private equity group CVC in 2005/06. Constantin had an interest in the sale and is claiming damages of $140m.

It claims Mr Ecclestone and Mr Gribkowsky engaged in a “corrupt bargain” to undersell the bank’s stake.

Mr Ecclestone said Formula One was “worth nothing” without him in charge, but denied repeated claims in the High Court that he went to great lengths to ensure he stayed in control.

On his second day in the witness stand, the F1 chief executive insisted that he never cared who owned the pre-eminent motorsport series.

But he agreed with one description of him, that he did not believe in a democratic way of doing business and did not like it when several people wanted a say in the running of F1.

“Yes, it is my view, and I’ve made it on a number of occasions,” he told the court.

Mr Marshall suggested to Mr Ecclestone that his hold on F1 was threatened by BLB’s desire to remain a long-term shareholder.

He presented board minutes of F1 companies detailing efforts by Mr Ecclestone and Stephen Mullens, former F1 lawyer and representative of Bambino, to limit board composition to three, including themselves, giving them a majority, and to change articles of association.

But Mr Ecclestone repeatedly claimed it would have been easy for the bank and other shareholders to get rid of him if they wanted.

The case continues.

I was an employee. I run the company on a day-to-day basis. Whoever are shareholders makes no difference to me

– Bernie Ecclestone, F1 chief executive