Quote:When the story broke, Mosley said he had been told by a source close to the security services that he had been targeted in a covert investigation of his private life by a group specialising in such things for reasons and clients as yet unknown.

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FIA president Max Mosley knows whodunnit in News of the World sting
FIA president Max Mosley claims he knows who was behind the sting that resulted in the News of the World publishing video footage of him participating in an orgy with prostitutes.

Who's been framed? Max Mosley says he know who was behind News of the World sting Photo: GETTY IMAGES


By Tom Cary
7:51PM GMT 06 Feb 2009


"We pretty much know who it was now," said Mosley. "It wasn't done for fun. It was to get rid of me. I think the theory was that if that came out, I was going to resign. That is what the News of the World thought as well. They thought I would just go away and that was it."


"But I am not going to do anything or say anything until I am absolutely certain. That is going to take a little bit more time."


Mosley confirmed that the individual he suspects is from F1, but insisted it may take several years for him to confirm the identity.


"It might take two or three years for various reasons," Mosley said. "I don't care how long it takes. All sorts of other things are going to come out - there is an awful lot going on on the continent.


"We have got criminal proceedings against 17 individuals in Germany, we've got defamation actions in Germany, France and Italy. And in Italy the defamation actions are an adjunct to criminal proceedings, which of course are in the hands of prosecuting authorities.


"So it has become very much one of those things that takes a while. But we will get there."
Meanwhile, the FIA have lifted restrictions imposed on Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan following the 2007 McLaren-Ferrari espionage case.
McLaren were fined $100 million and excluded from the 2007 constructors' championship over the affair, while both Stepney and Coughlan were fired from their respective teams.


"The other day we got a letter from the lawyers of one of them saying he has got this restriction and this restriction, and it does seem a little bit mad to make them serve out even longer when the two teams concerned are all making love to each other," Mosley said. "So, we have said we will let them forget it.


"In the end they were just very minor players. If the full story came out, they are two minor players and there are people who are not minor players. But the full story will probably never come out."

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Ecclestone Made Corrupt' Deal to Sell F1 Stake, Lawyer Says
By Kit Chellel - Oct 29, 2013 2:20 PM GMT

Bernie Ecclestone, the chief executive officer of Formula One, was accused on the first day of a London trial of making a "corrupt bargain" to ensure the controlling stake in the sport's parent company was sold to his preferred bidder.


German media company Constantin Medien AG (EV4) is suing Ecclestone over allegations that he paid bribes to German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky in 2005 when F1 was sold to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners Ltd. He wanted to ensure he remained as chief executive of Formula One, which was in doubt at the time, said Philip Marshall, a lawyer for Constantin.


Ecclestone, 83, has already been charged in Germany over the scandal and the U.K. trial starts on the same day Swiss prosecutors said they are investigating whether any laws were broken in that country. Gribkowsky was convicted in Munich of receiving a bribe last year and sentenced to 8 ½ years in prison.


Ecclestone gave about $44 million to Gribkowsky, who managed Bayerische Landesbank's controlling stake in F1, then concealed the payments using offshore companies in Mauritius and the British Virgin Islands and "bogus documents," Marshall, told the court, citing prosecution documents from Germany.


Ecclestone's lawyers at Herbert Smith Frehills LLP in London declined to comment, according to a spokesman for the firm. He has said that he made the payments after Gribkowsky threatened to tell U.K. tax officials about a family trust controlled by Ecclestone's wife at the time.


Constantin says it lost as much as $171 million because the 2005 deal undervalued its stake in the sport. The sale was made without any marketing, independent valuation or competing bids, Marshall said.


Ecclestone and CVC co-founder Donald Mackenzie are due to testify at the trial in November.


The case is: Constantin Medien AG v. Bernard Ecclestone, case no. 11-02586, High Court of Justice, Chancery Division.

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These days, Ecclestone is struggling to keep his grip on the business.


Bribery Case


At 81, he's under pressure on several fronts. Prosecutors in Germany have named him as a Beschuldigter, or suspect, in a bribery case linked to the sale of Formula One six years ago. Ecclestone, who hasn't been charged, is scheduled to testify in a Munich court today and tomorrow.


In addition, race teams such as Ferrari and McLaren, which complain that Ecclestone is failing to keep Formula One up with the times, are considering putting on a breakaway series that would weaken F1. The teams' contractual obligations, including staying in F1, expire after 2012.
The greatest threat of all to Ecclestone's dominance could come from a looming takeover bid.


Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and the Agnelli family's Exor SpA (EXO) want to buy the 63.4 percent of Formula One owned by London- based buyout firm CVC Capital Partners Ltd. through its Jersey, Channel Islands-based holding company Delta Topco Ltd.


The would-be buyers are pushing ahead despite News Corp.'s run-ins with U.K. authorities over a phone-hacking scandal involving one of its newspapers, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.


Bloody Enormous'


CVC, which manages $44 billion, has invested in Formula One and 53 other companies, including luggage maker Samsonite International SA and Spanish road-toll operator Abertis Infraestructuras SA.


CVC executives declined to comment on the Formula One takeover interest, referring calls to Ecclestone, who owns a 5.3 percent stake in F1. He says it would take a "bloody enormous" bid for CVC to sell.


"We've been building it -- more audience, more income," Ecclestone says. Ultimately, he says, CVC Managing Director Donald Mackenzie will decide. "He's the guy who will turn the lights on and off," Ecclestone says. "I have very few shares, so it's nothing to do with me."


Under CVC's ownership, Ecclestone says he has retained complete autonomy over management even without the full control of the commercial rights he had in the late 1990s.

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CVC sealed the deal after borrowing $2.5 billion in 2005 to acquire Bayerische Landesbank's 48 percent holding and most of the Ecclestone family's 25 percent stake. As part of the transaction, Ecclestone re-acquired a 5.3 percent stake.


Former FIA President Mosley says quick thinking has kept Ecclestone in a dominant position. "If he went into a revolving door behind you, he would come out in front," Mosley says.


Nonetheless, Ecclestone's hand is weaker than it used to be. His one-time ally Mosley stepped down as FIA president in 2009, and Ecclestone doesn't have the same rapport with his successor, former Ferrari team boss Jean Todt, Jenkins says.


On another front, German prosecutors said earlier this year they were investigating suspicions -- Verdachte -- that Ecclestone bribed former Bayerische Landesbank risk manager Gerhard Gribkowsky in the sale of Formula One to CVC. "A bribe?" Ecclestone says. "You shouldn't believe all you read, you know."

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As vulnerable as Ecclestone is, Formula One suitor News Corp. (NWSA) is embroiled in a phone-hacking scandal in the U.K. that has caused it to shut down the News of the World newspaper, which has admitted accessing the voice mail accounts of celebrities and others.


Amid the controversy, News Corp. announced it was shelving a £7.8 billion offer for the 61 percent of pay-television broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc (BSY) it doesn't own. In July, BSkyB won the rights to broadcast the entire F1 series for seven years from March 2012 onward.


The U.K. sideshow is diverting News Corp.'s attention away from its F1 bid, says Tim Westcott, an analyst for media consulting firm IHS Screen Digest in London.


A person familiar with the situation counters that the bid was very much alive as of mid-October. That individual says News Corp. Deputy Chief Operating Officer James Murdoch, the 39-year- old son of CEO Rupert, and Exor chief executive John Elkann, 35, are actively courting racing-team owners and working on a 5- to 10-year business plan for Formula One.


News Corp., whose pay-television channels already air Formula One races in Germany and the U.S., faces another obstacle, Westcott says: It would have to agree to a raft of conditions to assure European Union regulators that it's not going to monopolize the television rights. Alice Macandrew, a spokeswoman for News Corp. in London, declined to comment, as did Exor spokesman Richard Holloway.