Nina Ricci’s owner convicted over tax fraud

Perfume and fashion company Nina Ricci’s owner Arlette Ricci has been convicted for tax fraud.

A Paris court has sentenced Ricci to one year of prison for hiding millions of euros from the French authorities in an offshore HSBC account.

An investigation has been launched into HSBC’s Swiss private banking arm after a leak revealed large scale tax fraud.

UK’s HM Revenue and Customs received the leaked data in 2010 and identified that 1,100 people from the list of 7,000 British clients have not paid their taxes. However, only one of them is being prosecuted after five years.

The court has also imposed a fine of €1m on Ricci and confiscated two of her properties worth €4m. It has also ordered to seize Ricci’s houses in Paris and on the holiday island of Corsica worth more than £3m.

Ricci, who was accused of transferring the deeds of the properties to family trusts in order to restructure her assets, so as to evade penalties, had denied accusations of hiding over £15m and said that her intention was to avoid tax and not evade. But, the tapped phone calls to daughter Margot Vignat revealed that Ricci was aware of violating the law.

Vignat was also convicted and given an eight-month suspended sentence.