[POLL] Bernie Ecclestone Trial

  • Thread starter Jaywalker
  • 64 comments
  • 2,676 views

What do you think will happen to Bernie Ecclestone?

  • He'll be found innocent

    Votes: 9 18.4%
  • Guilty - Big fine

    Votes: 21 42.9%
  • Guilty - Suspended sentence

    Votes: 11 22.4%
  • Guilty - Jail time

    Votes: 4 8.2%
  • Other

    Votes: 4 8.2%

  • Total voters
    49
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
What a ****ed up world we live in no? :irked:
No. German law allows for criminal cases to be settled like this. Which is a point that just about every story on the matter has raised. Ecclestone is well within his rights to offer a settlement.
 
No. German law allows for criminal cases to be settled like this. Which is a point that just about every story on the matter has raised. Ecclestone is well within his rights to offer a settlement.
Yes i already knew financial criminals always escape punishment in general. It's a rich mans world ainnit.
 
Yes i already knew financial criminals always escape punishment in general. It's a rich mans world ainnit.
You're assuming that Bernie committed a crime, which has not been proven. Offering to settle the case is not an admission of guilt. And if he is guilty, he'll hardly have escaped punishment, given that it will cost him €25 million.
 
You're assuming that Bernie committed a crime, which has not been proven. Offering to settle the case is not an admission of guilt. And if he is guilty, he'll hardly have escaped punishment, given that it will cost him €25 million.
You'd make a good lawyer prisonermonkeys :D
 
You're assuming that Bernie committed a crime, which has not been proven. Offering to settle the case is not an admission of guilt. And if he is guilty, he'll hardly have escaped punishment, given that it will cost him €25 million.
If I spent that kind of money to get out of a case, I'd feel pretty guilty. Seems he's has something to lose if he went to trial. And, legal or no, it's sounds messed up when the rich can buy their way out of court.
 
The juxtaposition of an 8 figure payment to make a criminal trial go away against the fact the criminal trial is over 8 figure payments in exchange for favourable treatment amuses me.
 
Seems he's has something to lose if he went to trial.
He is on trial.

And he does have something to lose - his health. He is apparently under massive pressure, and that kind of stress, innocent or no, can really hit you hard.

And, legal or no, it's sounds messed up when the rich can buy their way out of court.
Do you know what's messed up? When you pass judgement on something that you clearly don't understand.

Settling a criminal trial like this is not a privilege afforded only to the rich. It only applies in certain circumstances, and is available to anyone who meets them. The amount that they pay is proportionate to the alleged offence and is scaled to take into account their finances. In other words, if you were on trial and you met those conditions, you would not be charged €25,000,000 - you might be charged €2,500 depending on your ability to pay.
 
The juxtaposition of an 8 figure payment to make a criminal trial go away against the fact the criminal trial is over 8 figure payments in exchange for favourable treatment amuses me.

Exactly... perhaps if this wasn't a case about bribery, it wouldn't look quite so bad to make the trial disappear by paying off the court and asking them to use the money to build a Formula One track and thus promote his own financial interests even further. Absurd. Brilliantly clever from old Bernie though, but still rather absurd.
 
Last edited:
German prosecutors have said that they "would accept" a $100 million settlement from Ecclestone.
 
Jeez, what kind of legal system allows you to pay to end your trial like it's a parking ticket....I guess no millionaires go to prison over there.
 
Jeez, what kind of legal system allows you to pay to end your trial like it's a parking ticket....I guess no millionaires go to prison over there.
Once again, the system works in such a way that the settlement is relative to the accused's ability to pay. Bernie might have settled for $100,000,000, but you or I might only have to settle for $10,000.
 
Once again, the system works in such a way that the settlement is relative to the accused's ability to pay. Bernie might have settled for $100,000,000, but you or I might only have to settle for $10,000.

The point is no one should be able to buy their way out of a trial whatever the relative settlement, especially one about bribery!
 
Honestly I don't care, just somebody make sure F1 keeps running and I'll be happy having almost no interest in how he pays his way out of this. :D
 
The point is no one should be able to buy their way out of a trial whatever the relative settlement, especially one about bribery!
They also take into consideration other factors, such as whether or not a custodial sentence is in the public interest (it isn't), the age of the defendant (ooold), and probably a few other things like 'does this guy do any good for our country/economy' (I'd say that was a big yes!) and 'is it worth the bother over something that hasn't done anybody any significant harm?' (arguably not)... this kind of settlement is clearly not always appropriate, but in some instances it sounds like a smart solution. It is somewhat ironic that they can ask for money to let a bribery charge slide, but then again, perhaps it is a very appropriate punishment!!
 
The point is no one should be able to buy their way out of a trial, especially one about bribery!
Except that he didn't buy his way out. Just because he made an offer, that doesn't mean that the courts had to accept. If you read their statement, they made it clear that a ruling in favour of the state was not a guarantee. The case relied on evidence from Gerhard Gribkowsky, who had already been convicted and sentenced in relation to the episode, which throws his entire testimony into question. Ecclestone won several parallel rulings in the British courts earlier this year, which were seen to be a boost to his chances in Germany, and finally, the prosecution had never been able to demonstrate that the money was paid as a bribe, rather than as extortion - especially since Gribkowsky didn't get his way with the sport after the money was paid.
 
Except that he didn't buy his way out. Just because he made an offer, that doesn't mean that the courts had to accept. If you read their statement, they made it clear that a ruling in favour of the state was not a guarantee. The case relied on evidence from Gerhard Gribkowsky, who had already been convicted and sentenced in relation to the episode, which throws his entire testimony into question. Ecclestone won several parallel rulings in the British courts earlier this year, which were seen to be a boost to his chances in Germany, and finally, the prosecution had never been able to demonstrate that the money was paid as a bribe, rather than as extortion - especially since Gribkowsky didn't get his way with the sport after the money was paid.
So why would Bernie offer the money if he had a good chance of winning anyway?
 
So why would Bernie offer the money if he had a good chance of winning anyway?
Because it has reportedly taken a huge toll on his health. Trials are long, drawn-out processes, and can be very stressful. Offering to settle is not an admission of guilt.
.
 
I agree. The sport never would have grown the way it did were it not for him. But too many people like to characterise him as money-grubbing dictator who colluded with others to wrest control of the sport from its rightful owners, the teams (which would never work; we have seen countless instances of teams going back on their word and/or principles the moment it suited them). He has made some unpopular decisions in the past, and I think it is unfortunate that some people will go out of their way to make sure history remembers him as a tyrant who did more harm than good simply because he sought new markets rather than religiously observing the "heritage" of out-dated European venues.

There's a very interesting bit in the movie "1" that talks about how Bernie gained control in the first place, and it involved a conversation in which he offered all the teams at the time shares in such, but as Hesketh says, the teams all thought about all the testing they could do with their cars for that money, and thus said "no, thank you" ... Hesketh goes on to say, "pathetic, really" to think of what they lost because of that decision.

As for the settlement, aside from what prisonermonkeys has been saying about German law, those that think Bernie is guilty of a crime should consider - I'm guessing jail time would be something he wouldn't be paying for, and would offset any additional fines they could possibly enforce. Plus he's in his 80s ... jail time wouldn't amount to much in effect. Say out loud a few times "one hundred MILLION DOLLARS" (with or without the Dr. Evil voice), as in more money than all of us on this board will ever be worth in total... That's not a bribe, that's a hefty fine.
 
Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/profile/bernard-ecclestone/) states his net worth at $4.2 billion. So the $100 million settlement constitutes 2.38% of his net worth. It's also more than double the amount of the alleged bribery. The judge even stated they couldn't substantiate the charges... so it's probably lucky he offered to settle or he might have merely walked.
 
The judge even stated they couldn't substantiate the charges
That's one of the main reasons why the court accepted the settlement. The prosecution's case relied on testimony from Gerhard Gribkowsky, who had already been tried and convicted for having received the bribe. This makes him incredibly unreliable as a witness, since he has every reason to lie. The prosecution also has to demonstrate that Bernie knew Gribkowsky was acting in his role as a public servant at the time the bribe was offered, which would have been very difficult to do, and nor did they ever disprove Bernie's claim of extortion.

While there may have been a case for Bernie to answer to, it was never a clear case of wrongdoing. From the moment the prosecutor started kicking around the idea of going after Bernie on the back of Gribkowsky's conviction, this whole thing reeked of the prosecutor trying to catch the biggest fish that he could.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back