Ecclestone faces tax fraud charge over £400million ‘hidden overseas’
FORMER Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone will be charged with fraud after allegedly failing to declare more than £400million in assets hidden overseas.
The Crown Prosecution Service yesterday authorised charging the 91-year-old with fraud by false representation following an HMRC investigation, Operation Gallic.
Mr Ecclestone, who is Britain’s 74th richest person with an estimated net worth of £2.5billion, will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on August 22.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Andrew Penhale confirmed: ‘The CPS has reviewed a file of evidence from HMRC and has authorised a charge against Bernard Ecclestone of fraud by false representation in respect of his failure to declare to HMRC the existence of assets held overseas believed to be worth in excess of £400 million.’
Director of HMRC’s fraud investigation service, Simon York, said the charge came following a complex global criminal investigation.
‘The criminal charge relates to projected tax liabilities arising from more than £400 million of offshore assets which were concealed from HMRC,’ he added.
‘HMRC is on the side of honest taxpayers and we will take tough action wherever we suspect tax fraud. Our message is clear – no one is beyond our reach.’
Mr Ecclestone spent 40 years as F1 boss, making himself a fortune and building the sport into a multibillion pound global business.
He retains a 2.1 per cent stake in the sport, while his family trust, Bambino Holdings, has a further 5.4 per cent.
Mr Ecclestone is thought to have made £1.9 billion from selling a majority stake in 2016.
The former racing boss provoked controversy last month when he said that he would take a bullet for the Russian president Vladimir Putin, whom he described as a ‘first-class person.’
Mr Ecclestone defended Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, saying that the Russian leader was doing something he believed in and that everybody made ‘mistakes from time to time.’
Speaking to Good Morning Britsince ain on ITV, the British businessman said: ‘I’d still take a bullet for him. I’d rather it didn’t hurt, but if it does I’d still take a bullet, because he’s a first-class person.’
Mr Ecclestone later apologised for the comments, adding that he ‘did not mean to upset anybody’.
The two men are thought to have been friends since the introduction of the Russian Grand Prix in 2014 – an event that has been removed from the Formula One racing calendar.
The billionaire father-of-four left school at 16 and was running a car dealership by 21.
He entered Formula One in 1972 when he bought the Brabham team for £100,000, before using his seat on the board of the Constructors’ Association to acquire the sport’s global TV rights, which he sold in more than 100 countries.
By the early 1990s, F1 was valued at £2.5 billion, and Mr Ecclestone was earning an estimated £1million a week. It was eventually sold to Liberty Media for £6.4 billion.
Mr Ecclestone has a daughter, Deborah, with his first wife Ivy, whom he married in 1952.
He has two further daughters, Tamara, 38, and Petra, 33, with second wife Slavica, a Croatian former model.
And in 2020 his third wife, Brazilian lawyer Fabiana Flosi, 46, whom he had married in 2012, gave birth to their son, Alexander ‘Ace’ Ecclestone.
‘Did not mean to upset anybody’