Asked why the payments had not been made to the teams themselves, and
suggesting that they were in fact “very strange”, Ecclestone said he had
“not the slightest idea” what the three people named had done with the
money. “I’ve no idea. They were paid to sign the Concorde Agreement and
that’s what they did.
“What you’re inferring is these people haven’t been acting correctly, Alain
Prost and whatever.”
Marshall suggested that Ecclestone’s philosophy on such payments was
consistent with that of Luc Argand, a Swiss lawyer and trustee of Bambino
Holdings, who allegedly said that as long as the person paid was not a
public official the payment itself was “not criminal”.
“Do you regard the payment of bribes to people who are not public officials as
acceptable?” Marshall asked Ecclestone. “I will have to think about that,”
Ecclestone answered.
Earlier in the day, Ecclestone laughed off suggestions that he intimidated
Gribkowsky after it emerged that the former chief risk officer of BayernLB,
a state-owned bank in Bavaria, felt so threatened by Formula One’s chief
executive that he went to the police in Munich to register his concerns.
Referring to a statement Gribkowsky gave in December 2004, Marshall suggested
the German appeared to feel he was “under some sort of physical threat” from
Ecclestone.
Ecclestone laughed, saying that Gribkowsky had said that “what he really
needed was a licence to be able to carry a gun”.
The case continues.