Unpaid debts, bankruptcy, prison sentence… After years of hardship, Boris Becker finds an agreement to escape personal bankruptcy

Boris Becker, 56 ans, échappe à la faillite personnelle. EFE – Rodrigo Jimenez

The insolvency procedure opened in 2017 against the former world number one tennis player was "legally closed".

British justice has decided to close the personal bankruptcy procedure affecting former German tennis champion Boris Becker (56) following an agreement with his judicial administrators, announced his lawyer on Thursday.

The insolvency procedure opened in 2017 against the former world number one was "legally closed"by a decision rendered Wednesday by the High Court of London following this agreement, which also cancels its liability for the remaining residual debts, indicated its lawyer Christian-Oliver Moser in a press release.

Released in 2022 after 8 months of imprisonment

The six-time Grand Slam tournament winner was sentenced by a London court in the spring of 2022 to two and a half years in prison and was released after eight months of imprisonment in the United Kingdom for these facts. He was thus released from prison just before Christmas 2022, on December 15.

Boris Becker, who had lived in the United Kingdom since 2012, was convicted in April 2022 of concealing or illicitly transferring hundreds of thousands of euros and pounds sterling for not paying his debts after being declared bankrupt.

He was notably accused of having transferred hundreds of thousands of pounds sterling from a professional account to other accounts, notably those of his ex-wives, of not having declared a property in Germany and of having hidden a loan of 825,000 euros and shares in a company.

Bankruptcy in 2017

Boris Becker first contested all the charges, before admitting his guilt after his release from detention, in an interview with a German television 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%. ;nbsp;million pounds sterling (59 million euros).

Before that, Becker had already had legal setbacks for unpaid debts with the Spanish justice system, concerning work in his villa in Majorca, and with the Swiss justice system for not having paid the pastor who paid him & rsquo;had married in 2009.

In 2002, German justice sentenced him to a two-year suspended prison sentence as well as a fine of 500,000 euros for some 1, 7 million euros in tax arrears.