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A "bribe" to close a bribery prosecution

Posted on 7th August 2014

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I found this BBC story rather amusing.

Bernie Ecclestone, who runs Formula 1 racing, has been in court since April on a bribery charge. The BBC report describes how a deal has been reached, whereby charges will be dropped against Mr. Ecclestone in consideration of a payment of €100M: the case is closed with neither a guilty nor an innocent verdict.

Excuse me for being naïve, but isn't it at least a little hypocritical to close a bribery case with what is, in effect, a bribe?

Also, the payment seems rather small. The original bribe was €33M, and impacted the control of Formula 1, which is worth rather more than the €100M that Mr. Ecclestone paid. Bernie Ecclestone is, according to the report, worth $4.2bn (€3.15bn), and so could probably have afforded to pay more.

I suppose we could chalk it up to the oddities of German law, of which there are more than a few: many cases have no jury; if you are sent to prison for debt, there is an exact formula for how long a sentence to clear a given amount of debt; all law enforcement is done by the police (there is no system of bailiffs for local laws, so police are involved in cases of unpaid tax, if you recycle improperly, if you do laundry on a Sunday - illegal in some areas - or if you fail to get all your neighbours' permissions before trimming a tree which overhangs several gardens, to name but a few examples).