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

ROME, Dec 5 (Reuters) – 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.

($1 = 0.8579 euros)

(Reporting ‌by Emilio Parodi, writing by Giulia Segreti, ‌editing by Alvise Armellini)