Wednesday, 7 September 2016

Published 11:12:00 by

Billionaire pays to end bribery trial

By Ryan Bayona - Flickr: Bernie Ecclestone, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19295033

Car racing billionaire Bernie Ecclestone, 83, was accused of paying a $44 million bribe to a German bank. But a German court agreed to end his trial when Ecclestone offered to pay the court $100 million.

Via BBC:

The ruling means he walks free from the district court in Munich and can continue running the sport. It also means Mr Ecclestone is found neither guilty nor innocent. His personal wealth is put at $4.2bn by Forbes, which ranks him as the 12th richest UK billionaire. If found guilty, he could have faced a 10-year jail term and the end of his decades-long dominance of motor racing.