Ecclestone puts foot down over bank settlement

“If they try to sue, they shall have no chance at all.

“I don’t think they will try to sue. If they want to, then OK but at the moment we don’t do anything. We made a sensible offer and they rejected it, so let’s wait.”

A spokesman for BayernLB said: “We didn’t agree with the settlement and perhaps Ecclestone or his lawyers will think about it and call BayernLB.”

He added: “Perhaps the $25m doesn’t match with this settlement structure and perhaps somebody has to think about it because the state prosecutors in Germany got $100m.”

Last week, BayernLB chief executive Johannes-Joerg Riegler told journalists in a conference call: “If the overall package is right, we wouldn’t be closed to it.

“It is still open whether it will come to a settlement or we will have to sue.” If Mr Ecclestone is sued he would not risk being put in prison if he loses.

This is because the allegations are civil, as they relate to unpaid money, rather than criminal, like the bribery charges that he recently faced.

He denies paying a bribe. Judge Peter Noll said in his concluding remarks that

“the charges could not, in important areas, be substantiated”.

He added: “The court did not consider a conviction overwhelmingly likely from the present point of view.”

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