Former Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has pleaded guilty to tax fraud

Former Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone pleaded guilty on Thursday to tax fraud, in a case in which he is being tried for failing to declare more than £400 million (€473 million) of assets owned in Singapore between 2013 and 2016.

• Read also: Bernie Ecclestone has pleaded not guilty in a UK tax fraud case

• Read also: Former Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has been charged with tax fraud in the UK

Bernie Ecclestone, 92, initially pleaded not guilty in August 2022, but finally admitted the charges during a hearing on Thursday in London.

He will therefore be sentenced at a later date, without having to face the trial that was scheduled to begin on November 16 and last for six weeks.

“I plead guilty,” the British billionaire told Southwark Crown Court in London, wearing a dark suit and gray tie.

He is accused of failing to declare a trust fund in Singapore with an account worth $650 million, or about £400 million at the time.

British prosecutors had authorized his indictment after a tax investigation that was presented as “complex and international.”

Ecclestone dominated Formula 1 for almost 40 years, until January 2017.

He then left his position as director of the global motorsport elite after being fired by the new owner of the discipline’s commercial rights, American group Liberty Media.

A short-lived racing driver in the late 1950s and then boss of the Brabham team, the British businessman, whose fortune was estimated by Forbes magazine at more than £2.5 billion, is widely considered the architect of the transformation of Formula 1, which became the lucrative activity under his rule.

In particular, at the end of the 1970s he was one of the pioneers in marketing television broadcasting rights to sporting events.