Bernie Ecclestone, the 83-year-old supremo of Formula One, this week brought his empire-threatening bribery trial to an end by agreeing to pay $100m to the German court that was hearing the case. That is right: he paid off the state of Bavaria to escape a bribery charge.
一级方程式(F1)老板、现年83岁的伯尼•埃克尔斯通(Bernie Ecclestone)最近了结了一桩危及其企业帝国的贿赂案，同意向正在审理此案的德国法院支付1亿美元。没错：他通过向德国巴伐利亚州付款而避免了一项行贿指控。
The legal outcome is scandalous, and is almost matched by the absurdity of Mr Ecclestone’s defence. He claimed he and his family trust paid $44m to Gerhard Gribkowsky, a former executive of the state-backed bank BayernLB to stop him giving information about Mr Ecclestone’s financial affairs to tax authorities. No, that was not the prosecution case; that was the defence.
这一法律结果是可耻的，而埃克尔斯通的辩护理由也很荒谬。他声称，他和他的家族信托曾向州立的巴伐利亚银行(BayernLB)前高管格哈德•格里布科夫斯基(Gerhard Gribkowsky)支付4400万美元，以阻止他向税收当局透露埃克尔斯通的财务信息。不，这不是公诉人的陈词；这是辩方陈词。

It is standard practice for Mr Ecclestone, who has ruled F1 since the late 1970s, when he persuaded the racing teams to give him control of the broadcasting rights and much else, to behave in a breathtaking manner. “No, he can’t possibly get away with that, can he?” people often ask. Oh, yes he can.
对于埃克尔斯通而言，用一种令人瞠目结舌的方式行事是标准做法，自上世纪70年代末以来，他一直是F1的掌门人，当时他说服各赛车队让他控制电视转播权以及其它很多权利。人们经常会问：“不，这次他不可能逃脱法律惩罚了吧？”哦，是的，他可以逃脱惩罚。
Yet Mr Ecclestone wields complete authority over F1 for one good reason: few can imagine it thriving without him. If he had not stopped the case, he would have needed a forthright defence. Here is what I would have told the judges had I been his lawyer:
然而，有一个很好的理由让埃克尔斯通全权掌控F1：人们无法想象，如果没有他，F1是否还会蓬勃发展。如果他没有了结此案，他原本需要直截了当的辩护。如果我是他的律师，我将这样告诉法官：
“Mr Ecclestone is, the defence concedes, not the most sympathetic of defendants. He is a self-made billionaire who criss-crosses the world in a private jet with his Formula One contracts, having scrambled his way up from a humble start as a second-hand motorcycle trader. He was literally what the British call a ‘wheeler-dealer’ – a wily entrepreneur.
“辩护人承认，埃克尔斯通先生并非最让人同情的被告。他是一位白手起家的亿万富翁，他会带着他的F1合约乘坐私人飞机穿梭于世界各地，他从一个二手摩托车交易商起步，一步步攀升到现在的位置。他确确实实就是英国人所说的‘投机钻营者’：一位老谋深算的企业家。
“He has not changed over the years. He is one of the world’s best negotiators, able to cajole both rivals and friends into deals that have brought him wealth. If Mr Ecclestone values you, he will reward you with tickets to the paddock at F1 events and a cut of the billions that the sport generates. If he does not like you, watch out.
“多年来，他从未改变。他是世界上最佳谈判者之一，不管是竞争对手，还是朋友，他都能取悦他们达成交易，而这些交易给他带来了财富。如果埃克尔斯通看重你，他将奖励你F1大奖赛装备区的门票，还会从赛事带来的数十亿美元收入中分一部分给你。如果他不喜欢你，那你就要小心了。
“The defence also admits that it is hard to imagine Mr Ecclestone as the director of a public company, having to obey listings rules and to act in an open and transparent way towards shareholders. This, after all, is the man whom a British judge described earlier this year as ‘impossible to regard’ as a ‘reliable or truthful witness’ in court.
“辩护人还承认，人们很难把埃克尔斯通设想为一家公开上市公司的董事：必须遵从上市规定，并以公开和透明的方式对待股东。毕竟，今年早些时候，一名英国法官曾把他形容为在法庭上‘不可能被视为’一个‘可靠且讲老实话的证人’的人。
“Mr Ecclestone gave evidence to the trial in London that he misled the F1 board about having paid millions to Mr Gribkowsky because ‘I didn’t need to tell them . . . [it] wasn’t the slightest concern of theirs’. I will leave it to the court to decide whether a public company director could behave like that.
“埃克尔斯通曾在伦敦向庭审提供证据称，他在向格里布科夫斯基支付巨款一事上误导了F1董事会，因为‘我不需要告诉他们……（这）一点不关他们的事’。对于一家公开上市公司的董事能否如此行事，我将让法庭来决定。
“But Formula One Management, Mr Ecclestone’s licensing company, is not a public company and has not tried to become one. It is quite the reverse – a private enterprise run by a sole trader. Mr Ecclestone is its master and commander, and he has always tried to escape oversight or any restriction on his freedom of financial manoeuvre.
“但埃克尔斯通的授权公司一级方程式管理公司(Formula One Management)并非一家公开上市公司，也无意上市。恰恰相反，它是一家由个体户经营的私有企业。埃克尔斯通是该公司的老板和指挥者，他一直努力逃避监督或任何对其财务操纵自由的限制。
“He did not regard the payment to Mr Gribkowsky as a bribe but as a bargain, one of many thousands he has struck over the years to keep the F1 show on the road. He has constantly reached agreements with those presenting opportunities and challenges, from powerful teams such as Ferrari and McLaren Mercedes to advertisers and broadcasters. In his mind, this was no different.
“他没有将付给格里布科夫斯基的钱视为贿赂，而是将其视为一种交易，就像多年来他为了让F1赛事成功举办所达成的数千笔交易一样。他一直在与那些带来机会和挑战的人达成交易，从法拉利(Ferrari)和迈凯轮(McLaren Mercedes)等强大赛车队到广告商和电视公司。在他看来，这笔交易没有什么不同。
“He is wealthy, but he is only rich because he has made Formula One prosper. Everything he has done for several decades has been calculated to increase the value of the business as a whole, in which he still holds a significant stake. It looks easy with hindsight but he created something from nothing when nobody else possessed the vision or skill.
“他是富有的，但他致富只是因为他让F1繁荣了起来。几十年来他所做的一切都是经过盘算的，目的是提升F1的整体价值，他仍持有其中很大的权益。事后看来，这一切都很容易，但在其他人没有眼光或能力的时候，他从无到有缔造了一个王国。
“Not only did he understand from the early days that F1 could be transformed from a scrappy sport run by eccentric enthusiasts with a varying number of Grand Prix races each year into a global media business; he was also the only one capable of making it happen.
“他从早年就知道，F1能够从一种由古怪的爱好者运作的混乱的运动（每年举行不同数量的赛车大奖赛），转变为一项全球媒体业务；不仅如此，他还是唯一有能力使其成为现实的人。
“It required him to unify the rival F1 teams, including the powerful ones that could go their own way, make them accept discipline, and shift control from the sports circuits that paid teams to attend races to the teams themselves. He did this by selling broadcasting rights, which brought in the revenues to support the weaker teams and make the races more exciting.
“这需要他团结相互竞争的F1车队（包括一些可能自行其是的强队）、让他们遵守纪律并将控制权从付钱请车队比赛的赛车场转移到车队自己。他通过出售转播权做到了这点，这带来了收入，可以用来支持实力较弱的车队，让比赛变得更加激动人心。
“My client is an entrepreneur of a highly unusual kind: he did not only found one company; he cultivated an industry of racing drivers, teams, venues, broadcasters and advertisers that perform as an entity. At any moment, one of these might feel badly treated and threaten to break away from the others, undermining the industry as a whole.
“我的客户是一位极其不同寻常的企业家：他不仅创建了一家公司；他还培育了一个由赛车手、车队、赛场、电视公司以及广告商组成的行业，它们作为一个实体开展经营。在任何时候，都可能有某个组成部分觉得自己受到不公平对待，威胁要退出，从而破坏整个行业。”
“F1 faces repeated challenges of this kind, yet Mr Ecclestone has held it together. He has done so not only by exerting the personal authority that comes from having himself been a racing driver, manager and owner of an F1 team, but also by striking a series of astute backroom deals. By negotiating privately, he makes it harder for others to demand similar financial terms.
“F1多次面临这种挑战，然而，埃克尔斯通都顺利化解了挑战。化解的方法不仅包括利用他曾经担任赛车手、F1车队经理和所有者而树立的个人权威，还包括达成一系列精明的幕后交易。通过私下谈判，他让别人更难要求类似的财务条件。
“Some people talk of removing Mr Ecclestone from F1 and managing it more conventionally. They regard him as an embarrassment, a relic of a freewheeling corporate governance past. But, like its cars, F1 is a highly complex entity with many moving parts that could easily fall apart. Only one man has demonstrated the ability to prevent that.
“一些人谈到让埃克尔斯通离开F1以及采取更传统的管理方式。他们认为他造成难堪，是过去那种随心所欲的公司治理的残余。但就像F1赛车一样，F1是一个极其复杂的实体，有很多运动部件，很容易散架。只有一个人展示出了阻止这种情况发生的能力。
“The British have another word for an entrepreneurial risk-taker who pushes the boundaries of the legal and proper: a chancer. Mr Ecclestone is a chancer but he has earned a final chance.”
“英国人对于挑战法律和恰当行为底线的冒险企业家有另外一个称呼：投机分子。埃克尔斯通是一个投机分子，但他赢得了最后的机会。”