Amazon pays Italy 180 million euros to end tax, labour probe, sources say

An Italian unit of e-commerce giant Amazon has paid compensation and scrapped a monitoring system for delivery staff, ending a probe into alleged tax fraud and illegal labour practices, sources with knowledge of the matter said ⁠on Friday.

In July 2024, the group’s logistics services unit was accused of circumventing ⁠labour and tax laws, relying on cooperatives or limited liability companies that supplied it with workers, avoiding VAT tax ‍and reducing ‌social security payments. At the time, Milan prosecutors seized ⁠121 million euros ‌from the unit.

The group has now paid ‌around 180 million euros ($209.83 million) to the Italian tax agency as part of a wider 1-billion-euro settlement involving 33 companies that had been targeted ‍by similar investigations in Milan, the two sources said. These include Italian units of DHL, FedEx and ‌Ups, and ⁠Italian ​supermarket chain Esselunga, they added.

News of ⁠the ​settlement was first reported by Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper. Under the deal, the companies that were ​under investigation also agreed to directly employ more than 50,000 workers who were ⁠previously hired indirectly through ⁠the cooperatives, the paper and the sources said.