The former Formula One executive, Bernie Ecclestone, admitted guilty to fraud and was sentenced to a suspended term.
Tax officials in 2015 investigated the 92-year-old about more than £400 million stored in a Singaporean trust, but he failed to disclose it.
A court heard that Ecclestone consented to pay back around £653 million to HM Revenues and Customs as part of a legal settlement. He received a sentence of 17 months in jail with a two-year suspension.
The billionaire had previously pleaded not guilty and was scheduled to go on trial the following month. The encounter between Ecclestone and HMRC officers in July 2015 was reported to the court.
It heard that Ecclestone was “seeking to a draw a line under investigations into his tax affairs” because he “was fed up of paying huge bills for advice”.
He stated at the time that he had only one trust, which was set up for his daughters. He had declared to HMRC that he was “not the settlor nor beneficiary of any trust in or outside the UK.” However, after what HMRC has previously called a “complex and worldwide” examination, that response turned out to be untrue.
Ecclestone and his spouse Fabiana arrived at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday. Ecclestone’s sole words to the court were “I plead guilty” and other basic information. When he stood up to address the judge in court, he looked weak.
The former F1 boss’s legal team said that because of his late age, health problems, and poor level of risk to the public, he should not be sentenced to jail.
Prosecutor Richard Wright stated in court that Ecclestone had intentionally provided HMRC with a “untrue or misleading” response when he said he had no more trusts outside of the UK, after Ecclestone’s guilty plea.
He went on saying, “Mr. Ecclestone was unable to respond to the inquiry as of July 7, 2015, since he was unaware of the position’s actual status. Ecclestone was not entirely clear on how ownership of the accounts in question were structured. He therefore did not know whether it was liable for tax, interest or penalties in relation to amounts passing through the accounts. Mr Ecclestone recognises it was wrong to answer the questions he did because it ran the risk that HMRC would not continue to investigate his affairs. He now accepts that some tax is due in relation to these matters.”
