Naijie Qu, 63, head of the Haichang Group based northeastern Chinese port city of Dalian, was also sentenced to a suspended three-year jail term and fined one million euros ($1.1 million).
The fine was 400,000 euros more than requested by prosecutors, who had asked for a four-year suspended jail term.
Haichang is a trading and shipping company which also has interests in property, tourism and agriculture.
It was the biggest of numerous Chinese investors which bought into one of France's most famous wine-growing regions in the early 2010s.
French police seized the estates in 2018 after finding evidence of tax fraud and use of forged documents, including to obtain a 30-million-euro loan by the Chinese bank ICBC's branch in Paris.
The chateaux were put in the name of Qu's wife in Hong Kong via a series of elaborately named shell companies in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.
China's National Audit Office (NAO) has said that Haichang had been granted public money by state authorities to buy foreign technology, but had instead purchased vineyards in France.
Esprit files for bankruptcy of European businesses
Frankfurt, Germany (AFP) May 15, 2024 -
Fashion group Esprit said Wednesday it has filed for bankruptcy of its European businesses, seeking to restructure the operations after they were hit by rising costs.
The Hong Kong-listed group initiated the bankruptcy proceedings in Germany, saying it hoped the move would enable the affected subsidiaries to overhaul their finances.
The company "continues to explore new funding opportunities. Various potential investors have expressed their interest for strategic partnership," it said.
The insolvency proceedings, filed at a court in Duesseldorf, concern the Esprit Europe subsidiary and six other German companies in the group.
Subsidiaries in Switzerland and Belgium had already filed for bankruptcy in March and April.
"In recent years, the subsidiaries have been battling extremely high costs due to inflation, interest rates and energy prices, the after-effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the consequences of international conflicts," the group said in a statement.
The situation was worsened by "legacy costs", such as high rents and a "bloated" workforce, it said.
Similar problems -- and growing competition from online merchants and low-cost fast fashion retailers -- have hit a string of fashion groups in recent times.
This is the second time in four years that Esprit, founded in 1968 in the United States and present in 40 countries, has filed for bankruptcy.
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