On October 12, 2023, Bernie Ecclestone, aged 92 and a former Chairman Emeritus of Formula One Group, received a 17-month suspended jail sentence after admitting to fraud. He agreed to pay US$793.8 million to HM Revenue and Customs and was also ordered to cover prosecution costs of US$90,000.

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The charges against Ecclestone stemmed from his failure to declare over US$486.85 million in foreign assets to the UK government. The judge considered the seriousness of the offense but also took into account Ecclestone’s low risk of reoffending, his age, medical condition, and the impact of imprisonment on his young child.

Ecclestone had run Formula One for decades before it was sold to Liberty Media in 2017. The charges specifically related to a trust in Singapore that Ecclestone allegedly failed to declare. He was accused of fraud by false representation because he had informed HMRC in 2015 that he had established only one trust for his daughters, which was later deemed misleading.

The director of HMRC’s fraud investigation service emphasized that the charges followed a complex and global criminal investigation, underscoring HMRC’s commitment to taking tough action against tax fraud.