He was a businessman who specialized in recovering bankrupt companies, among which Adidas is the most famous (he owned Adidas from 1990 to 1993); and owner of sports teams: his cycling team La Vie Claire won the Tour de France twice – in 1985 and 1986 – and his football club Marseille won the French championship four times in a row, and the Champions League in 1993.

In 1985, Tapie bought the sailing ship Club Méditerrannée from the wife of disappeared French navigator Alain Colas.

In 2008, a special judicial panel ruled that Tapie should receive compensation of €404 million from the French Ministry of Finance, headed by Christine Lagarde.

[4] In 2012, the new French government held by the socialists announced they would challenge in courts the Arbitrage sentence ruled in favor of Tapie under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy.

After four years of new trials, the Arbitrage was canceled on the basis of a "suspected fraud" in the nomination and impartiality of one of the three judges who ruled in favor of Tapie.

In 2019, a criminal case was conducted against Tapie and the suspected judge concluded there was no fraud and the arbitrage was fully legal.

In 1995, Adidas was listed on the Stock Exchange for a valuation of 11 billion francs, nearly six times the price paid by Robert to Tapie to acquire it.

He starred, together with Fabrice Luchini, in Claude Lelouch's 1996 movie Hommes, femmes, mode d'emploi (Men, Women: A User's Manual).

In 2000, he made his debut as a theater actor, receiving great reviews from French critics for his re-enactment of Jack Nicholson's role of Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

[8] From 2001 to 2005, Tapie acted in theater plays and appeared in the French TV series Valence as a police chief.

[10] President Emmanuel Macron, a lifelong supporter of Marseille, expressed his condolences to Tapie's family in a statement, saying he and his wife "have been touched by the news of the death of Bernard Tapie, whose ambition, energy and enthusiasm were a source of inspiration for generations of French people".