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Italian financial police have seized €121mn from a Milan-based Amazon unit after the ecommerce giant was accused of alleged tax fraud and labour malpractices in its logistics network.
The Milan prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday, in an order authorising the seizure, that Amazon Italia Transport had set up a “complex tax fraud” by disguising the nature of its relationship with the couriers in its delivery network.
Amazon is the latest in a series of major logistics companies to come under scrutiny from Italian authorities for its tax compliance and labour practices. The Milan prosecutors’ office has conducted similar investigations into global delivery groups DHL and United Parcel Services, which have also had cash seized.
In the 94-page order authorising Tuesday’s cash seizure, the prosecutor said the Amazon couriers were formally employed by autonomous subcontractors that were “systematically omitting” to pay mandatory VAT as well as social security and welfare contributions.
But the order said Amazon Italia Transport, a subsidiary of Amazon Europe set up in 2016, had exercised “the specific powers of employers” over the workers. They included “organising the activities of individual couriers, managing their operations, controlling their work and providing the computer and IT equipment necessary to perform the services”.
The document added that the establishment of “a complex, fraudulent pyramid structure”, involving formally autonomous labour suppliers and various intermediaries, allowed Amazon to circumvent tax and other labour-relating payments, thus helping to keep its prices competitive.
The cash seized as a preventive measure relates to the value of the alleged malpractices from 2017 to 2022, the order said.
Amazon has denied any wrongdoing. “We comply with all applicable laws and regulations where we operate, and require companies who work with us to do the same,” it said in a statement on Tuesday.
It added that the company and its partners adhere to “the highest standards” and that suppliers must follow a code of conduct. Amazon added that it would “help the relevant authorities with their inquiries”.
Amazon has long come under scrutiny for its treatment of workers. This month, a ballot at a UK warehouse failed to gain a majority for union recognition at the tech giant.
In its order, the Milan prosecutor said Amazon’s relationship with the couriers carrying out its deliveries appeared to violate the country’s labour laws.
Behind the facade of formal legal contracts and invoices between Amazon Italia and companies supplying workers for last-mile deliveries, “we discovered the existence of a single economic entity, directed, managed and organised in every point of view by Amazon Italia Transport”, the prosecutors’ order said.
Amazon Italia Transport “exercises direct powers over the individual couriers who were formally employed” by independent manpower suppliers, adding that such suppliers had “no operational autonomy”, the order added.
The Amazon case comes months after Italian authorities in December sequestered $94.5mn from the local unit of the US-based global delivery service UPS, accusing the company of acting as the direct employer of more than 8,500 workers who were formally on the books of an autonomous labour co-operative.
Authorities also seized €20mn from DHL in a similar case in 2021.
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