Sir Christopher Gent, chief executive of Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone operator, is under investigation over multi-million pound payments to top executives at a German company after it was taken over by his company.

Gent is one of 10 people named by public prosecutors in Dusseldorf looking at payments totalling £40 million to Mannesmann board members.

The prosecutors are looking into whether the payments were related to the board's decision to accept Vodafone's takeover terms which until then had been strongly opposed by the Mannesmann directors.