In evidence to a Munich court last summer, the 54-year-old acknowledged that
prosecution allegations that he had corruptly received £26.6million in bank
payments, plus a substantial payment from Ecclestone via a family trust,
were “essentially true”.
Ecclestone responded in his testimony that he had been worried that failure to
pay the money would have caused Gribkowsky to alert UK authorities to
“things” that might have led to a tax inquiry.
“The only alternative was that the British tax authorities followed a case
that would have been very expensive for me,” he said.
He has one of Germany’s top law firms, Thomas Deckers Wehnert Elsner, working
for him on the case. If it goes to trial, it would call into question both
his role in F1 and the sport’s future, given his lack of any clear
succession plan.
He said of this possibility last December: “They [CVC Capital] will probably
be forced to get rid of me if the Germans come after me. “It’s pretty
obvious, if I’m locked up.”