"I assume", Judge Peter Noll told the defendant, Bernie Ecclestone, in a Munich court on August 5th, that "we'll only see each other again on television." With that Mr Ecclestone, the 83-year-old boss of Formula One motor racing, was free to leave. He must pay $100m-$99m to the state of Bavaria, $1m to a charitable foundation for children. But he will continue to be presumed innocent of the bribery charges that could have sent him to prison for up to ten years and put a spoke in the wheel of his sports empire. Mr Ecclestone's lawyers settled with prosecutors under paragraph 153a of the German legal code. This was originally meant to speed up the settlement of certain kinds of muddled criminal cases so courts could keep up with their dockets. But in recent years, the paragraph has been invoked in high-profile cases of white-collar-crime, drawing criticism that it is a way for the rich to buy themselves out of trouble. Mr Ecclestone's $100m payment set a record.
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