Gerhard Gribkowsky

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Gerhard Gribkowsky (born April 16, 1958 in Hamburg ) is a German bank manager and former risk director at BayernLB , who played a key role in the Formula 1 takeover by the Alpha Prema investment company at the end of 2005 . Since December 2010, prosecutors have been investigating him on suspicion of accepting bribes amounting to 50 million US dollars and hiding them from the tax authorities . At the end of June 2012, he was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. He was released from prison in early 2016.

Life

From 1979 to 1981 Gribkowsky did an internship at Siemens AG . He then studied law at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg . In 1988 he received his doctorate. Until 2002 he worked at Deutsche Bank AG . Until 2001 he was a member of the management for the Bavaria region. Most recently, he was responsible for risk positions in the mechanical and plant engineering, durable consumer goods, retail and tourism sectors worldwide. From 2003 to April 2, 2008 he was a member of the Board of Management of Bayerische Landesbank (BayernLB) in Munich .

In addition, he served on the supervisory boards of several companies, including Air Finance BV in Amsterdam, Formula One Administration, Formula One Management in London, Deutsche Kreditbank (from April 3, 2007 to April 10, 2008) and the construction company Strabag ( until June 18, 2010) and Züblin and as a director at MKB Bank Zrt in Hungary.

His father was a member of the Beck’s board of directors . Gribkowsky lived in Grünwald near Munich until his arrest and has three grown children from his first marriage.

Since March 2019, Gerhard Gribkowsky has been involved as a volunteer Massner in the Evangelical Lutheran Christ Church in Munich-Neuhausen.

Controversy

Participation in the Hypo Alpe Adria Group

BayernLB made a bad investment in Hypo Alpe Adria as part of the global economic crisis . This resulted in a total loss of 3.7 billion euros for the bank. The Free State of Bavaria later saved its Landesbank with a cash injection of ten billion euros.

Chief Risk Officer Gribkowsky was considered to be partly responsible for the bad investment. There were also internal power struggles. On April 2, 2008, the Board of Directors dismissed Gribkowsky with immediate effect. By the end of 2012, he should receive his salary of around half a million euros a year. In October 2010 the payments were stopped and in January 2011 Gribkowsky was sued for 200 million euros in damages. Identical demands were made against the seven other board members at the time.

The criminal proceedings on the same subject were discontinued.

Criminal proceedings

In April 2002 KirchMedia filed for bankruptcy. No buyer could be found for their 75 percent stake in SLEC Holding, at that time the top umbrella company of Formula 1. In July 2002, the creditor banks liquidated their loan collateral through self-entry. BayernLB granted Kirch a loan of $ 987.5 million and received 62.2 percent of Kirch's shares as security (46.65 percent of the total shares in SLEC).

Since the beginning of October 2003 Gribkowsky had been on the Formula 1 supervisory board for BayernLB. He should try to find a buyer for the shares. Gribkowsky represented the majority of the banks' shares and, as their representative, the majority of the total shares, but the banks had no say in Formula 1 companies. It came to the banking dispute in Formula 1 . A court ruling allowed the banks to fill all executive board positions in the important companies, which Gribkowsky also took advantage of and brought himself to some executive boards, including as chairman of the SLEC. That put Gribkowsky in a position where he could theoretically have fired Bernie Ecclestone .

On November 25, 2005, Alpha Prema took over the Formula 1 shares of BayernLB and Ecclestones Bambino Holding and thus had the majority. BayernLB received $ 837 million for its shares. On the same day, Gribkowsky's own company GG Consulting was entered in the commercial register in Austria . On December 6, 2005, Alpha Prema also bought the shares in JPMorgan .

On February 21, 2006, Gribkowsky became a member of the Board of Directors of Ecclestone's company Petara and was authorized to pay with a single signature. On February 22, 2006, a mailbox company was registered in Mauritius , which later made part of the payments to Gribkowsky.

At the end of March 2006, after an examination by the European Competition Commission, Alpha Prema was the majority owner of Formula 1 on paper. A few days later, the Formula 1 teams agreed with the new owner on a new money distribution system. With that the separation of the manufacturers was off the table and the value of Formula 1 rose again. Gribkowsky had predicted such a scenario. In the same month Alpha Prema also acquired the shares from Lehman Brothers , making it the sole owner. Unlike BayernLB, Lehman reinvested shares in Alpha Prema and thus remained involved. Gribkowsky got one of the four board seats in the new holding company. (Above Alpha Prema, other company structures were later created. Since then, Delta Topco has been at the top, but until 2008 it had the same distribution of ownership as Alpha Prema: approximately 70 percent CVC Capital Partners , 17 percent Lehman, 9 percent Bambino, 4 percent other and Ecclestone personally held 1 share.) BayernLB paid Ecclestone 40 million dollars in commission and his company Bambino Holding 20 million dollars for outstanding claims.

Between 2006 and 2007, GG Consulting made several payments totaling $ 44 million for two consulting contracts. The paying firms were First Bridge Holding, based in Mauritius, and Lewington Invest, based in the British Virgin Islands .

On May 3, 2007, Gribkowsky set up the “Sunshine” private foundation in Salzburg. This foundation includes the three companies GREP GmbH, GFU GmbH and Aktion Zeitangebote GmbH. The purpose of the foundation is described as "Preservation, increase and the best possible administration and investment of the assets of the private foundation, the provision of the founder and the beneficiaries". GREP GmbH was responsible for asset management within the foundation group. Aktion Zeitangebote GmbH took care of supporting families with children with cancer.

On December 14, 2007, Ecclestone personally allegedly received a written reminder to pay GREP GmbH $ 2.229 million. Ecclestone reportedly made a phone call to one of Gribkowsky's lawyers. He later told his relatives about Ecclestone's call.

After deducting taxes in Austria, the money from GG Consulting was passed on to the private foundation. GG Consulting was dissolved in 2008. The total assets of the foundation in November 2010 were 25.6 million euros.

On December 23, 2010, the Süddeutsche Zeitung researched Gribkowsky and conducted an interview with him. He first stated to the Süddeutsche Zeitung that the money came from family assets, but later he gave no further information. On December 29, 2010, Gribkowsky went to the Munich public prosecutor himself and informed them about his foundation before it could be read in the newspaper. The public prosecutor's office then began investigating Gribkowsky.

On January 5, 2011, Gribkowsky was arrested on suspicion of embezzlement of assets, corruption and tax evasion in the millions. He was accused of failing to revalue the shares when the BayernLB shares were sold and of having sold them below their value. In doing so, he had harmed his then employer. These allegations were later corrected several times as part of exchange detention orders. He collected 50 million dollars for his courtesy and did not pay tax on it in Germany. Ecclestone repeatedly denied having anything to do with the matter of knowing the payment companies for the consultancy orders or knowing anything about these payments. However, there have now been testimony confirming a connection with Ecclestone and the phone call on the occasion of the warning letter.

On February 10, 2011, the assets of the Sunshine Foundation were frozen. BayernLB is said to have received around 11 million euros from recycling in 2015. On July 19, 2011, the public prosecutor brought an indictment to the Munich District Court I. On June 20, 2012, Gribkowsky himself admitted to the allegations made against him. On the basis of the findings from 45 days of negotiations, he admitted that he could and should have prevented BayernLB from paying commission to Ecclestone. The court interpreted this admission as a confession. On June 27, 2012, the Munich Regional Court I sentenced him to eight and a half years imprisonment for bribery as a public official in unfaithfulness and a majority of offenses with tax evasion. His confession was mitigated. After the appeal was withdrawn, the judgment became final on May 2, 2013.

At the beginning of 2014 Gribkowsky had to answer again before the Munich Regional Court. The public prosecutor's office accused him - like the other former board members of BayernLB - of embezzlement at the expense of the bank because of the allegedly overpriced purchase of the Hypo Alpe Adria Group and of bribery. The case against him was but after a few days of negotiations with regard to the penalty imposed in Formula 1 Process sentence under § 154 Criminal Procedure Code on February 17, 2014 set .

According to a statement from the Munich Regional Court in February 2016, the remainder of the prison sentence will be suspended on March 3, 2016. Gribkowsky has served almost two thirds of his sentence.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Strabag SE Corporate Governance Report 2009  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Strabag, April 7, 2010. Retrieved February 11, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.strabag.cz  
  2. ^ A b Profile of Gerhard Gribkowsky . www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved February 11, 2011.
  3. ↑ The Risk Friend . Melanie Amann, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 9, 2011, p. 32.
  4. ↑ That's how ostentatious the scandal banker lived . www.bild.de, January 7, 2011.
  5. ^ Pension under palm trees . sueddeutsche.de, January 7, 2009.
  6. ↑ The walker from Grünwald . sueddeutsche.de, January 4, 2011.
  7. ↑ Gribkowsky should pay 200 million euros . sueddeutsche.de, January 23, 2011.
  8. ↑ a b A letter from Gerhard Gribkowsky . www.pitpass.com, January 23, 2011.
  9. ↑ Case No COMP / M.4066 - CVC / SLEC . Commission of the European Communities, March 20, 2006. Retrieved February 11, 2011.
  10. ↑ a b "This is a mess" . sueddeutsche.de, February 12, 2011.
  11. ^ Causa Gribkowsky: Ecclestone company involved? . www.motorsport-total.com, January 12, 2011.
  12. ↑ CVC now also on paper Formula 1 owner . www.motorsport-total.com, March 28, 2006.
  13. ↑ Formula 1 and the banker . faz.net, January 3, 2011.
  14. ↑ SONNENSCHEIN PRIVATE FOUNDATION ( Memento from January 14, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ). www.wirtschaftsblatt.at, January 11, 2011.
  15. ↑ "Come on, let's go, we're going" . sueddeutsche.de, January 5, 2011.
  16. ↑ ARD Tagesschau from January 5, 2011 on youtube
  17. ↑ Good advice to Bernie . sueddeutsche.de, February 5, 2011.
  18. ↑ The money is gone . sueddeutsche.de, February 11, 2011.
  19. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 19, 2015, p. 24.
  20. ^ Spiegel Online on June 20, 2012: Gribkowsky incriminated Formula 1 boss Ecclestone , manager-magazin.de
  21. ↑ Gribkowsky was imprisoned for eight and a half years . Southgerman newspaper. June 27, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2012.
  22. ↑ Press release of the Federal Court of Justice of May 10, 2013 [1] .
  23. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 11, 2014, p. 14.
  24. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 18, 2014, p. 14.
  25. ^ Spiegel Online on February 8, 2016 [2]
personal data
SURNAME Gribkowsky, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German bank manager
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg