Ecclestone defiant in wake of court ruling

F1’s commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone says yesterday’s High Court finding against him in London “means nothing” in the dispute between himself and three German banks.

He also says it will not see any shift in the power that Ecclestone holds over the sport.

The three banks, Bayerische Landesbank, JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers known as Speed Investments control 75% of SLEC, the holding company that owns the F1 commercial rights.

Ecclestone owns the remaining 25% in a family trust.

The case revolved around the board of Grand Prix parent company Formula One Holdings (FOH), controlled by SLEC.

Despite the banks' majority stake they were in a minority position on the board with Ecclestone's family trust company Bambino Holdings which only has a 25% stake in FOH having a dominant position.

Speed Investments took Bambino to court over its decision two years ago to appoint Luc Argand (Ecclestone's Geneva lawyer) and Emmanuele Argand-Rey (Argand's wife) to the FOH board.

They argued Bambino exceeded its powers under company rules to make the pair board members.

Judge Mr Justice Park said Bambino had "no real prospect" of defending Speed's claim.

But Ecclestone is expected to appeal the ruling.

Ecclestone admitted he was not bothered by the ruling and claimed the banks were merely trying to add value to their shares.

Ecclestone said: "The banks, they want to get out. These people didn't get their shares out of choice, they got them as a security. They got the house and they don't want the house."

The banks inherited the F1 shares after the collapse of German media giant Kirch in 2002. As creditors, Bayerische Landesbank, JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers were given Kirch's assets, which included the F1 stake.

"They want to cash in the house and that's what they're trying to do. This is just a problem of them trying to put value on their shares," Ecclestone added.

Ultimately what is as at stake is Ecclestone's hold over an empire he has built for the past 20 years.

If the banks were to do a deal with the GPWC, the group of car manufacturers threatening to break away from F1, Ecclestone's power could decrease significantly.

However, if he fails to get the judgement overturned, Ecclestone is thought likely to try to make peace with the GPWC group.

In the meantime F1 team bosses have rejected Ferrari's 2005 testing proposals at a meeting at Heathrow in London on Monday. The nine teams have instead vowed to continue to discuss the plans they have put forward in their previous meetings without the support of the world champions.

Ferrari handed its own set of testing proposals to Bernie Ecclestone rather than attend the meeting. Included in the proposals was a limit of 15,000 kilometres of testing per team at a nominated track with a further 15,000kms permitted for tyre suppliers Bridgestone and Michelin to conduct their own testing split between their teams.

However, the teams viewed Ferrari's proposals as "not terribly fair" and have decided to press ahead with their own plans that have been discussed in the last three meetings without Ferrari.

This means teams will stick to their original proposal of a limited 24 days of testing during the season unless there is a last minute change of heart from Ferrari to sign up to the proposal put forward in Brazil which limited testing to 10 days during the season with four hours of practice on a Friday.