Latest news with #EmilioParodi
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Milan mayor placed under investigation in property planning probe
By Emilio Parodi MILAN (Reuters) -The mayor of Milan has been placed under investigation, three sources said on Thursday, caught up in a probe into the dealings that have helped to underpin a real estate boom in Italy's financial capital over the last 10 years. The investigation into Mayor Beppe Sala comes after prosecutors on Wednesday sought the arrest of Milan's councillor for urban planning, the head of real estate firm Coima and four others. According to three sources with knowledge of the matter, Mayor Sala, who heads a centre-left coalition in the city, is among dozens of people under investigation. He is accused of concealing a conflict of interest relating to the appointment of a chairman of a municipal commission that grants building permits. He is also allegedly among those who put pressure on that same chairman to unblock the authorisation of a building project in the city. His spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. The probe on the mayor was first reported by three Italian newspapers. In a comment published by Corriere della Sera newspaper on Thursday, Sala denied any wrongdoing and said he found it "shocking that the mayor should learn from a newspaper that he is under investigation and not from prosecutors. It is unacceptable". The scandal risks embarrassing Milan as the city prepares to co-host the 2026 Winter Olympics next February. The ruling centre-right parties, who govern at national level under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, have called for Sala's resignation. Two of the sources specified that the investigations into the mayor's position are still in their early stages and are not close to any conclusion, expressing regret that the news had become public. The Milan property market began flourishing in 2015, when the Expo international exhibition helped to transform the city into a hot spot for developers from Italy and abroad, reshaping its skyline. But complaints from local residents objecting to a sharp increase in the number of multi-storey buildings triggered investigations into alleged abuses in the fast-tracking of building permits, stalling construction activity. According to court documents, prosecutors said investigations related to the largest urban planning projects in Milan, "have brought to light a 'system'...whose purpose is to facilitate the issuance of illegal building permits and to carry out highly speculative real estate transactions". (Additional reporting by Elvira Pollina, editing by Keith Weir and Sharon Singleton) Solve the daily Crossword
Time of India
15-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Cashmere king Loro Piana becomes latest Italian luxury brand called out for worker abuse in supply chain
By Emilio Parodi Cashmere king Loro Piana , part of LVMH 's luxury empire, became on Monday the fifth high-end brand to be put under judicial administration in Italy over worker abuses in supply chains, after an investigation that has tainted the image of Italian luxury goods. Loro Piana Spa will undergo court monitoring for a year, according to the 26-page ruling reviewed by Reuters, which stems from investigations into the world of subcontracting for luxury goods in Italy that started in 2023. Units of fashion brands Valentino , LVMH's second largest brand Dior, Italy's Armani, and Italian handbag company Alviero Martini were also placed under administration. The Court of Milan found that Loro Piana, which makes expensive cashmere clothing, subcontracted its production through two front firms that had no actual manufacturing capacity to Chinese-owned workshops in Italy, which the court said exploited workers. LVMH, the world's biggest luxury group, acquired 80% of Loro Piana in July 2013, with the Italian family that founded the company retaining 20%, according to the court ruling. In June, Loro Piana appointed Frederic Arnault, a son of LVMH chairman and Chief Executive Bernard Arnault, as its CEO. The Milan court, as in the cases of the other brands targeted by the investigation, found Loro Piana "culpably failed" to adequately oversee its suppliers in order to pursue higher profits, according to the ruling. Loro Piana declined to comment. LVMH was not immediately available for comment. The owners of the contracting and subcontracting companies were under investigation by Milan prosecutors for exploiting workers and employing people off the books. Loro Piana Spa itself faces no criminal probe. The prosecutors in the case said the violation of rules among fashion companies in Italy was "a generalised and consolidated manufacturing method". "Direct experience [from all the various investigations, i.e. Armani, Dior, Valentino, Alviero Martini and Loro Piana on the control of production chains] indicates that the complete outsourcing of industrial production processes is aimed exclusively at reducing labour costs and, consequently, also the criminal and administrative liability of the company with regard to worker safety... All this is done with a view to maximising profits at the lowest possible production cost," the Court of Milan said in its ruling on Monday. WORKER ABUSES AT SUBCONTRACTORS Italy is home to thousands of small manufacturers that make up 50%-55% of global luxury goods production, consultancy Bain has calculated. In May, Italy's fashion brands signed an accord with legal and political authorities to fight worker exploitation, but the ruling on Loro Piana said "this production chain, headed by Loro Piana, has continued to operate until now" and despite the previous cases being widely reported. The case involving Loro Piana Spa originated after Carabinieri police from the Milan labour protection unit in May arrested a Chinese workshop owner and closed his factory in the northwestern suburbs of Milan. The employer was reported by one of his workers for beating him, causing injuries that required 45 days of treatment, after the worker demanded 10,000 euros ($11,692.00) in unpaid wages. Carabinieri police found that the workshop produced Loro Piana-branded cashmere jackets and that its 10 Chinese labourers, including five illegal immigrants, were forced to work up to 90 hours a week, seven days a week, were paid 4 euros an hour, and slept in rooms illegally set up inside the factory. Carabinieri said in a statement they inspected two intermediary companies and three Chinese workshops, all in the Milan area, and identified 21 workers, 10 of whom were working off the books without proper registration, including seven illegal immigrants. According to the court ruling, the owner of an intermediary company stated that in recent years she had been producing around 6,000-7,000 jackets per year for Loro Piana at an agreed price of 118 euros per jacket if the order was for more than 100 items and 128 euros if the order was under 100 items. Based on the Loro Piana website, for example, men's cashmere jackets range from a minimum of over 3,000 euros to a maximum of over 5,000 euros. In their statement, Carabinieri concluded they had closed two Chinese-owned factories, the third being a 'paper' company with no production capacity, and imposed a joint fine of over 240,000 euros. The Milan court in its ruling on Loro Piana also appointed an external administrator to verify the company meets all the judges' demands on control of its supply chain. The administration will be lifted earlier if the unit brings its practices into line with legal requirements, as was the case with Dior, Armani and Alviero Martini.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive-Italy seeks $1.3 billion from fintech group ION in tax evasion probe, sources say
By Valentina Za and Emilio Parodi ROME (Reuters) - Italy is seeking 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) from fintech group ION following a probe by prosecutors in the northern city of Bologna into alleged tax evasion over the 2013-2023 period, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The investigation adds to a string of tax evasion cases in Italy targeting U.S. tech companies, which are also at the centre of a wider EU response to the trade war sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. ION Group is a privately held provider of financial services software and data based in Dublin and with offices across the globe which was founded by Andrea Pignataro, an Italian businessman hailing from Bologna. ION has spent around 6 billion euros on a series of acquisitions in Italy in recent years as Pignataro works to build a hub to provide data and digital services to smaller banks. The sum Italy's tax authorities are demanding from ION includes up to 500 million euros in missing revenues, which more than doubles when interest payments are added, one of the sources said. ION's lawyers are in discussions with the Italian tax authority to contest the claims, the person added. The charge is failure to file a tax return, the second source said, with prosecutors and Italy's tax police in Bologna alleging that the company declared income abroad that was actually produced in Italy. Reuters reported last month that Italy had handed tax demands to Meta, X and LinkedIn in an unprecedented VAT claim against the U.S. tech giants that could have repercussionsacross the EU.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Yahoo
Italian police say they disrupted migrant smuggling ring, 15 Egyptians arrested
By Emilio Parodi MILAN (Reuters) - Italian police said on Tuesday they had dismantled a migrant smuggling network, leading to the arrests in several countries of 15 Egyptians involved in using sailboats for dangerous illegal sea crossings from Turkey to Greece and Italy. According to an Italian police statement, the network facilitated the illegal entry into Italy of at least 3,000 migrants since 2021, earning more than $30 million by charging them $10,000 each. The Italian police said the arrests were made simultaneously in multiple countries with the cooperation of Albanian, German, Turkish and Omani police, coordinated by Italian anti-mafia prosecutors in Sicily and relying on Interpol and Europol. The smuggling network had been led by an Egyptian who ran operations from Istanbul, the Italian police said. "The organisation had set up a system that involved recruiting professional skippers, almost all Egyptian, providing logistical support in Turkey while the migrants waited to leave, and transporting them in sailboats to the Greek and Italian coasts," Italian police said in a statement. Crossings departing from the Turkish ports of Bodrum, Izmir and Marmari took up to a week, with dozens of migrants crammed on board 12-15 metre sailboats with no life-saving equipment, the statement said. Tens of thousands of migrants are believed to have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in recent years. The sea route from Turkey to Italy has been particularly notorious since February 2023, when at least 94 people died off Cutro in southern Italy in one of the worst disasters of the crisis.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Exclusive-Italy pursues payment from Meta, X and LinkedIn in landmark tax case
By Emilio Parodi MILAN (Reuters) - Italy has handed tax demands to Meta, X and LinkedIn in an unprecedented VAT claim against the U.S. tech giants that could have repercussions across the European Union, four sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday. While it has been reported that Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta and Elon Musk's social network X were under investigation for alleged tax fraud, it had not been disclosed that Microsoft's LinkedIn unit was also caught up in Italy's pilot VAT case for the tech sector in Europe. Italy is claiming 887.6 million euros ($961 million) from Meta, 12.5 million euros from X and around 140 million euros from LinkedIn. These figures refer to the entire period under investigation, from 2015-2016 to 2021-2022, depending on the case, but the tax assessment notice now served only covers the years for which claims are set to expire, namely 2015 and 2016. The issue is likely to be particularly sensitive given trade tensions between the EU and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has a good relationship with Musk, who is keen to expand his Starlink communications business in Italy. PILOT CASE The case is significant as it hinges on the way social networks provide access to their services. Italian tax authorities argue that user registrations with X, LinkedIn and Meta platforms should be seen as taxable transactions as they imply the exchange of a membership account in return for a user's personal data. In a statement to Reuters, Meta said it would not comment on the details of this case, reiterating that it had cooperated "fully with the authorities on our obligations under EU and local law." It added that the company "strongly disagrees with the idea that providing access to online platforms to users should be subject to VAT." LinkedIn said it had "nothing to share at this time." X did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The case could ultimately be extended to the 27-nation European Union since VAT is a harmonised EU tax, and force a rethink of the business model of the tech industry. According to several experts consulted by Reuters, the Italian approach could affect almost all companies, from airlines to supermarkets to publishers, who link access to free services on their sites to users' acceptance of profiling cookies. WHAT'S NEXT? Italy has actively pursued tech companies over tax. Google in February agreed to pay 326 million euros to settle a tax claim relating to the period between 2015 and 2019. But this is the first time in such cases that a settlement agreement has not been reached, and that the Revenue Agency has handed the companies a formal assessment notice, the last step before the start of a fully-fledged judicial tax dispute. This happened, according to three of the sources, because the case was not simply about agreeing a settlement figure but accepting a broader approach. The three companies have 60 days before they can appeal and thus start the judicial process. They get another month's grace if they ask the tax authorities to formulate a proposal for a settlement. After this, according to the sources, there are several options. The first is to go to court, with risks for both parties. This procedure involves three different levels of judgment and in Italy has an average duration of about 10 years. The second is that the Revenue Agency, which reports directly to the Economy Ministry, drops its claim. This, according to the sources, could happen at any time during the proceedings, and could be for either technical reasons, such as the possible difficulty of applying this approach, or for political reasons. The third is for the tax authorities and the companies to agree on the payment of the first contested annual instalments and for Italy to go back to the European Commission for its assessment, suspending the proceedings in the meantime. This, sources said, would allow Italy to take any decision together with the rest of Europe.($1 = 0.9237 euros) Sign in to access your portfolio
