Antitrust fines Armani for 'unfair practice'. Fine of 3.5 million euros
According to the Authority, the company published untrue information on its sites using the focus on social values as a marketing lever. The Group: 'Bitterness and astonishment. We will appeal to the Tar"
3' min read
3' min read
A maxi fine of EUR 3.5 million for deceptive commercial practice. This is how the Antitrust Authority fined Giorgio Armani Spa, a company founded by the eponymous entrepreneur and designer precisely 50 years ago. In July 2024, one of the companies of the group, Giorgio Armani Operations, producer of handbags, had ended up in receivership for omission of control in an episode of caporalato, contested by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Milan, exiting "in advance" with the revocation of the measure already in February 2025 "following the virtuous path taken by the company in the wake of the prescriptions given by the Court".
The objections
.It is precisely in reference to this episode that the Antitrust Authority has fined the companies Giorgio Armani Spa and G.A Operations Spa: according to the Antitrust Authority, "the companies have made ethical and social responsibility statements that are untrue and presented in an unclear, specific, accurate and unequivocal manner". These statements, identified by the Authority as untrue, would be found in the companies' Code of Ethics, in documents published on the Armani Values website and on the Armani website. The focus on sustainability would have become a marketing tool for the company, used to meet the growing expectations of consumers.
According to the Antitrust Authority, the Armani Group was instead aware of the condition of the workers in the subcontracting companies that produced Armani-branded leather bags and accessories: during a police inspection, an employee of G.A. Operations in charge of controlling the quality of the workmanship, who declared that he had been "going monthly to that workshop for about six months". Moreover, in an internal document of Giorgio Armani Spa dated 2024, prior to the opening of the judicial administration proceedings requested by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, it was reported that "in the best of the situations found, the working environment is at the limit of acceptability, in the other cases, strong perplexities emerge as to their adequacy and healthiness"..
The company's reaction
.The company's reaction was one of bitterness and astonishment: "Giorgio Armani S.p.A. welcomes with bitterness and astonishment the decision of the Antitrust Authority, which has come at the conclusion of the proceedings initiated in July 2024 for alleged misleading advertising, with which the company G.A Operations S.p.A and the parent company Giorgio Armani S.p.A are sanctioned". And announces, again in a note, that "the decision will therefore be challenged before the TAR, in the certainty of having always operated with the utmost fairness and transparency towards consumers, the market and stakeholders, as demonstrated by the history of the Group". In a document shared with Il Sole 24 Ore, the company points out that the Antitrust Authority's decision is said to have been based "on the preliminary elements on which the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office had requested that Giorgio Armani Operations be placed under judicial administration, without taking into the slightest account what was recognised by the same judges once they had thoroughly analysed the control and supervisory systems used by the Armani Group for some time in relation to the supply chain".
Finally, Giorgio Armani emphasises that "the episodes contested at the time at Giorgio Armani Operations consisted of irregularities detected against two suppliers that, in the aggregate, represented 0.7% of the total purchases of workmanship or finished products. In the course of the judicial administration, further improvements were therefore made that today make Armani a reference model for the entire sector".
