Bank ’not closed’ to higher Ecclestone settlement

Bernie Ecclestone looks set for new settlement talks.

After he ended his criminal troubles in Germany recently with a controversial $100 million payment, the F1 supremo’s legal troubles nonetheless went on when the Munich bank BayernLB rejected his EUR 25 million settlement offer.

But BayernLB chief executive Johannes-Joerg Riegler on Thursday admitted that if "the overall package is right, we wouldn’t be closed to it (a settlement)".

However, having lost a recent civil suit also over the Gerhard Gribkowsky affair, another former shareholder, Constantin Medien, is also fighting on.

"Constantin will pursue every possible legal remedy it has, both in the UK and in Germany, against those responsible for the losses it sustained," lawyer Keith Oliver told the Guardian.

But with the trial that could have seen him sacked and jailed definitively over, 83-year-old Ecclestone’s mind is firmly back on formula one.

He is busy putting together the sport’s 2015 calendar, which will not feature the return of an Indian grand prix.

"We are looking at 2016 now and hopefully the tax issues in India will also be sorted out by then," Ecclestone told the Indian news agency PTI on Thursday.