LVMH Faces Renewed Tax Scrutiny — Retail Bum

Luxury conglomerate LVMH lost its battle against French tax authorities for raiding its Paris headquarters in 2019.

The Cour de Cassation, France’s top court, overturned a previous ruling that had deemed the raid unjustified and asked the Paris Court of Appeals to reassess LVMH’s case. It also stated that mere presumptions of tax fraud are enough to authorize a raid under the guidance of French law, marking a deviation from the Appeals Court’s 2020 ruling.

The ruling renews a probe into the company on suspicions that it may have sought to cut its tax bill by operating its treasury operations in Belgium rather than France under false pretenses.

In response to the ruling, LVMH stated that the company strictly adheres to the rules and laws of every country it operates in and that the decision now returns the matter back to the lower court, which concerns purely procedural issues and European law. Earlier in 2020, one of the company’s attorneys had called evidence-gathering raids “shockingly disproportionate,” according to Bloomberg.

“These activities carried out in Belgium are well known to the French tax authorities and have already been audited on numerous occasions since their creation in 2009,” the company said.

Originally published at https://retailbum.com on February 21, 2023.