Ecclestone hires a German lawyer

Diminutive Bernie Ecclestone with his ex-wife Slavica and his two hot daughters

It has been a while since there we last heard any news in the papers about Gerhard Gribkowsky, the former chairman of F1's commercial rights holding company SLEC, who is currently in prison in Munich. Gribkowsky has been in a cell since January when he was arrested on suspicion of taking a $50m kickback for allegedly undervaluing a 47.2% stake in SLEC which his former employer, German bank BayernLB, sold to F1's current owners CVC in 2006.

Over the past two months the German media has been awash with speculation that F1's boss Bernie Ecclestone paid the $50m to Gribkowsky in 2006 and 2007 in return for him undervaluing the shares. Pitpass' business editor Chris Sylt has debunked this theory and concluded that it was as good as impossible that the shares were undervalued.

We are now more than two months into Gribkowsky's imprisonment and, surprise surprise, still no one has been arrested for paying the alleged bribe to undervalue the shares. Last month Sky News' business editor Mark Kleinman reported that an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the sale had been launched by CVC and SLEC's ultimate parent company Delta Topco. More at TotalF1.com