Exiled Wine Billionaire Hit With $416 Million Swiss Tax Bill

Pierre Castel, the French billionaire behind the Nicolas chain of wine shops, was ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in Swiss back taxes in a court ruling that found he deliberately hid his identity for decades as head of a global drinks empire.

A Geneva appeals court found that Castel, 95, had filed tax returns under one first name between 1982 and 1994 rather than another, by which he is well known as the founder of world’s third-largest wine trader. It put taxes and fines owed at around 415 million Swiss francs ($416 million).