More Evidence Accuse Ecclestone in F1 Right Saga

Bernie Ecclestone has been keeping quiet on the latest F1 rights saga, in which he is believed to have had a decisive role some 5 years back. However, that doesn't make the media stop looking for answers, and the latest developments on the story can only incriminate the current F1 supremo even more.

As a short reminder, when CVC Capital Partners purchased the share of F1 commercial rights formerly owned by Munich bank BayernLB 5 years ago, it is believed German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky – one of the important figures in the transaction – was paid a mysterious $50 million kickback.

Some weeks back, when the story made the headlines, everybody pointed their fingers at Bernie Ecclestone. And the Englishman decided not to answer any of these allegations, even though the media started digging.

According to the latest report published by German weekly Der Spiegel, it now seems that there is a $67 million difference between the sum that exited CVC's accounts 5 years ago and what was received by BayernLB. To be more precise, while CVC paid some $837 million for the rights, only $770 million have made it into the BayernLB accounts.

The same publication alleged that part of the money difference, approximately $40 million, was received by Ecclestone directly, while the remaining $27 million went to his family trust Bambino.

In late January, another piece of news appeared on the F1 right saga, linking Ecclestone to a letter that was marked as confidential and dated December 14, 2007, demanding him to pay a missing installment of $2.3 million as well as late penalties. The letter was sent by Austrian company called GREP GmbH, which received the bulk of the Gribkowsky $50 million payment.