Italian court lifts controls on fashion brand Alviero Martini

An Italian court has ended a period of special administration imposed on fashion brand Alviero Martini early because the company has taken all necessary measures to clean up its supply chain, the court said on Thursday.

The brand that makes bags and leather goods was placed in court administration for a year in January, after a probe alleged it had sub-contracted work to Chinese-owned firms in Italy that mistreated workers.

The company has over the last nine months adopted the required organisational model and supplier control procedures and concluded the relationship with a supplier defined as risky “extremely quickly,” the Milan court said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from the company.

The Milan court in April placed a company owned by Giorgio Armani under the same form of special administration and took the same action in June for an Italian subsidiary of French luxury giant LVMH that makes Dior-branded handbags, again for lack of control over their supply chain.

The proceedings on the Armani and LVMH companies are ongoing, as they started months later.
Investigations by Italian magistrates, and in particular by the Milan public prosecutor’s office, have over the last year exposed alleged exploitation of workers in the fashion and luxury supply chain.

Alviero Martini “showed a deep understanding of the rationale of the measure, achieving what was required without any negative impact on the company’s turnover,” according to Milan judges in Thursday’s statement.

Milan’s Court of Justice in June proposed an Italy-wide scheme, under which luxury firms should strengthen checks on suppliers to ensure they respect labour laws.