Ecclestone in £60m bribery trial settlementposted in F105 | 08 | 2014

NOW THIS MAY take you some time to get your head round, but Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has agreed a settlement of around £60 million ($100m) to end his bribery trial in Germany.

I know, it's all rather strange. But apparently, there's a loophole in German law which — in particular circumstances — allows a defendant to pay to end a trial .

Today, German prosecutors ruled this was applicable in Ecclestone's case and accepted his offer.

The 83-year-old has been on trial in Munich since April charged with bribery and incitement to breach of trust. He was accused of paying German banker Gerhard Gribkowsky $44m (£26m) to help ensure a stake in F1 was sold to a company he favoured in 2006.

Gribkowsky was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in 2012 for accepting bribes, and Ecclestone could have faced a lengthy jail term if found guilty.

I should stress here that Ecclestone had always maintained that he only made the payment because he was being blackmailed.

Had he been found guilty, his position at the head of F1 had been under threat.

In the legal precedent under which the settlement was reached, a defendant is neither pronounced guilty nor innocent.

“It is a settlement without any conviction, the presumption of innocence is still valid," Ecclestone's lawyer, Sven Thomas, said. "That was a condition under which I negotiated.

“The $100m is for the state of Bavaria. Maybe they will try and build a circuit. I will propose this – that they should build a nice circuit.”

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Jim McGill