Paris, (EFE).- The European Commission (EC) carried out an inspection at the headquarters of the luxury goods firm Gucci, within an antitrust investigation in the fashion sector, announced this Wednesday the French group Kering, owner of the Italian brand.
The inspection took place on Tuesday and is part of “a preliminary investigation into the fashion sector in several countries under the antitrust rules of the European Union (EU),” Kering said in a statement.
“The group is fully cooperating with the Commission in the context of this investigation,” he added.
At the moment, no further details have been revealed about how this inspection promoted by the European authorities was carried out in several EU countries in a surprise manner.
Brussels suspects that several companies in the fashion industry have been able to infringe community competition rules that prohibit price agreements or cartels and other “restrictive” business practices, the EC announced on Tuesday.
The European Commission, whose officials were accompanied during the inspections by the competent authorities of the Member States, specified in any case that these inspections are not related to those carried out in June 2021 and May 2022 in the same sector.
One of the most important companies in the sector
Kering, led by the French magnate François-Henri Pinault, is one of the flagships of fashion and the global luxury market, controlling well-known brands such as Gucci, Yves Saint-Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga, among others.
Together with LVMH, L’Óreal and Hermès, it forms the powerful luxury group that has become the engine of the main index of the Parisian Stock Exchange, the CAC-40. Kering has a stock market value of almost 76,000 million euros
The group, which employs 47,000 people worldwide, had a profit of 3,614 million euros in 2022, 14% more than in 2021, which was based on the record sales of each of the brands of the French luxury group .
The Gucci entry, investigated by the EC in an antitrust operation, was first published in EFE Noticias.