How French luxury goods group Kering dodged 2.5bn euros in tax
By Yann Philippin and Vittorio Malagutti (L'Espresso) et Esther Rosenberg (NRC Handelsblad)
Since 2002, French luxury goods and clothing group Kering, whose brands include Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Stella McCartney and Balenciaga, has avoided paying a total of about 2.5 billion euros in tax payments on earnings, mostly to the detriment of the Italian public purse but also that in France and in Britain, according to confidential documents obtained by Mediapart and analysed together with its media partners in the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) journalistic consortium. Yann Philippin (Mediapart), Vittorio Malagutti (L'Espresso) et Esther Rosenberg (NRC Handelsblad) report.
It was on November 29th last year when officers from Italy’s financial crime police agency, the Guardia di Finanza, arrived at the offices in Florence and Milan of the fashion brand Gucci. The ensuing search of the buildings lasted three days, when the police also searched the homes of three Gucci directors and questioned the brand’s chief executive Marco Bizzarri.
