Boris Becker avoids personal bankruptcy

(Berlin) British justice has decided to end the personal bankruptcy proceedings against former German tennis champion Boris Becker (56) following an agreement with his executors, his lawyer announced on Thursday.

Insolvency proceedings opened in 2017 against the former world number one were “legally terminated” by a decision handed down on Wednesday by the High Court in London following this deal, which also cancels its liability for remaining debts, his lawyer Christian-Oliver Moser said in a press release.

The six-time winner of the Grand Slam tournament was sentenced by a court in London in the spring of 2022 to two and a half years in prison and was released after eight months in prison in Great Britain for these facts.

He was thus released from prison just before Christmas 2022, on 15 December.

Boris Becker, who had lived in the UK since 2012, was found guilty in April 2022 of concealing or illegally transferring hundreds of thousands of euros and pounds sterling to avoid paying his debts after being declared bankrupt.

He was particularly accused of transferring hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling from a professional account to other accounts, particularly those of his ex-wives, of failing to declare an asset in Germany and of concealing a loan of 825,000 euros ($1,200,000 ) and shares in a company.

Boris Becker initially denied all charges, before admitting his guilt after his release from custody in an interview with a German TV channel.

At the time of his bankruptcy in 2017, following a series of bad deals, the debts of the ex-tennis superstar, the youngest Wimbledon winner at 17, were estimated at up to £50 million ($85 million).

Before that, Becker had already faced legal setbacks for unpaid debts with the Spanish courts, regarding work on his villa in Majorca, and with the Swiss courts for not paying the pastor who married him in 2009.

In 2002, German courts sentenced him to a two-year suspended prison sentence as well as a fine of 500,000 euros ($735,000) for around 1.7 million euros in back taxes.