Tavo's intentions for the Austin $25M are clear but whether he would have used it to pay FIA sanction fee was at heart of dispute with shareholder funding construction of track. If Austin venue is cancelled the shareholders can thank Bernie for voiding first contract as defendant Bernie Ecclestone has inserted himself in middle of $100M legal dispute.
Hellmund could not do anything with METF money. The deal was designed so that COTA & its investors would pay the sanctioning fee, then be reimbursed by the METF.
This isn't a Bernie problem. Had COTA backers paid the discounted sanctioning fee of $25M when it was due, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. My question, if they had the money as they claim, is "Why didn't they pay when they could have paid the lowered fee they seem to want so badly now?"
I see only a few likely possibilities:
a)They had the money but wanted to secure loans and couldn’t
b)They just didn’t have the money
c)They purposely withheld payment in order to force Ecclestone to void his race rights contract with Tavo, thus cutting him out of the deal he took years to create
d)Some combination of the above
For a very good summary of the whos and whys behind this mess, here are two excellent articles by the writer who broke the story to the public. He knows what's really going on here.
http://www.autoweek.com/article/20111114/FREE/311149999http://www.autoweek.com/article/20111126/FREE/111129948.... follow me on twitter @Austin_F1 ....