2023-10-12 09:21:32
Ex-Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone pleaded guilty on Thursday to tax fraud, in a case in which he is being prosecuted for failing to declare more than 400 million pounds (473 million euros) of assets held in Singapore , between 2013 and 2016. He was then given a 17-month suspended prison sentence.
• Read also: Bernie Ecclestone pleads not guilty to UK tax fraud
• Read also: Former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone accused of tax fraud in UK
He thus avoids a trial which was to open on November 16 and last up to six weeks.
Aged 92, Bernie Ecclestone initially pleaded not guilty in August 2022, but finally admitted the charges once morest him during a hearing on Thursday in London.
“I plead guilty,” the British billionaire told Southwark Crown Court in London, dressed in a dark suit and gray tie.
He is accused of failing to declare a trust in Singapore with an account with $650 million, or around £400 million at the time.
The British prosecution had authorized his indictment following a tax investigation presented as “complex and international”.
Ecclestone reigned supreme over F1 for almost 40 years, until January 2017.
He then left his position as manager of the elite of world motorsport following being fired by the new holder of the commercial rights to the discipline, the American group Liberty Media.
A short-lived racing driver in the late 1950s then boss of the Brabham team, the British businessman, whose fortune was estimated by Forbes magazine at more than 2.5 billion pounds, is widely considered as the architect of the transformation of F1, which became a lucrative activity under his rule.
In particular, at the end of the 1970s, he was one of the pioneers in the marketing of television broadcasting rights for sporting events.
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