Maxi-sequestration against Amazon Italia Transport for alleged tax fraud. The Nucleo di Polizia Economico-Finanziaria of the Guardia di Finanza in Milan, as part of an investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office, has carried out an urgent preventive seizure of 121 million euros against the Italian subsidiary of the e-commerce bigwig, which operates 44 sites and warehouses in Italy and deals with logistics services and couriers for deliveries. Three managers, including two foreigners, are under investigation, signing tax returns from 2017 to 2022. At the center of the investigation are “labor reservoirs”, an alleged system through which large companies secure “highly competitive rates” in the market by “contracting out” for logistics services labor to cooperatives, consortia, and filter companies in an irregular manner, with “labor exploitation” attached. The system has surfaced before for DHL, GLS, Uber, Lidl, BRT, Geodis, Esselunga, Securitalia, UPS, Carrefour Group's GS and GXO. Amazon Italia Transport, the Prosecutor's Office writes in the 94-page seizure decree, “through its technological devices exercises managerial powers by organizing de facto the activity of distribution and delivery of goods, including that relating to the so-called ‘last mile’ delivery apparently contracted out” to suppliers, “directly exercising towards individual couriers, formally employed by the above-mentioned suppliers, the specific powers of the employer,” including in “controlling their work”.
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