Legal & Institutional – Page 3
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ArticleItalian shoemakers ask for aid to mitigate the impact of Ukrainian war
The Italian footwear association Assocalzaturifici is asking for state aid to mitigate the negative impact Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had on business. “We feel like we are back in March 2020, in the middle of the pandemic,” said the president of Assocalzaturifici, Siro Badon, during a roundtable at Micam, ...
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ArticleItalian footwear industry revenues rise more than expected in 2021
Revenues of Italian footwear manufacturers rose by 18.7 percent in 2021 to €12.7 billion, according to an estimate made by Confindustria Moda’s research center. The estimate is above a prior forecast of a 16.2 percent rise for 2021, but remains 11 percent below the revenues achieved in 2019, the last ...
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ArticlePortugal adopts stricter rules for the labeling of leather substitutes
The Portuguese government adopted new regulations (Decreto-Lei n.o 3/2022) at the end of January 2022 to label all textile products that are man-made to replace genuine leather and also established fines for companies that do not comply. The new law defines the term leather and specifies its use. Accordingly, the ...
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ArticlePriceRunner sues Google for at least €2.1bn
The Swedish price comparison firm PriceRunner is suing Google for a preliminary amount of almost €2.1 billion at the Patent and Market Court in Stockholm. It claims that the U.S. company is overcharging European consumers, especially for apparel and footwear. The lawsuit follows the conclusion of the European General Court ...
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ArticlePortuguese shoemakers to invest €140m to bolster their competitiveness
The Portuguese footwear industry will invest €140 million over the next three years through Cluster do Calçado e Moda (the footwear and fashion cluster), a progam led by Apiccaps, the Portuguese footwear, components and leather goods manufacturers association, and the Portuguese footwear technological center, CTCP, to become “the international reference ...
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ArticleClarks 2-month strike over
The troubled British footwear company Clarks has reached an agreement with about 100 workers to end a two-month strike at its distribution centre in Somerset. The deal with the Community trade union, which follows mediation with the U.K.’s Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), is understood to protect hourly pay ...
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ArticleEU proposes new rules to fight deforestation, promote circular economy
The European Commission has adopted three new initiatives proposing rules to curb deforestation, to facilitate intra-EU waste shipments to promote circular economy and tackle the export of waste to third countries. From 1990 to 2020 the world has lost 420 million hectares of forest, an area larger than the European ...
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ArticleEurope, U.S. reach a deal defusing their trade dispute
The U.K., France, Italy, Spain, Austria and the U.S. have reached an agreement under which the European countries will drop their national digital services taxes as they prepare to implement a new global corporate tax defined through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A two-year transition period for ...
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ArticleSpanish shoemakers expect to emerge from Covid-19 crisis by 2022
The Spanish footwear industry suffered severely from the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 but has since enjoyed a 35 percent rebound in production during the first half of 2021. In an interview with Shoe Intelligence, Imanol Martínez, the marketing & international business development director of the Spanish footwear ...
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ArticleILO adopts code of practice for shoe and apparel manufacturing
To provide a practical basis for employers, workers and governments to work together to advance an occupational safety and health (OSH) prevention culture in the textile, clothing, leather and footwear manufacturing sector, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has worked out its first code of practice on safety and health for ...
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ArticleBlockchain technology: hype or helpful?
Blockchain technology (BT) is generally associated with cryptocurrencies, but it is rapidly being adopted in other sectors to streamline bureaucracy and foster transparency. In February 2019, the Italian industry ministry announced plans to set up, jointly with the computer giant IBM, a national scheme using BT to guarantee the traceability ...
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ArticleWorld Footwear helps shoemakers to deal with Brexit
The Portuguese shoe industry association, Apiccaps , has posted a useful guide on the website of World Footwear with practical checklists for shoe exporters and importers on how to deal with the new trade agreement between the U.K. and the European Union. It also organized a few days ...
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ArticleMyanmar violence raises sourcing concerns
Many sports and fashion brands that have shifted part of their sourcing for apparel and footwear to Myanmar because of its lower labor costs are watching with awe the consequences of the recent military coup in the country. According to observers, it may be difficult for some of them to ...
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ArticleUK lawmakers call for garment industry watchdog to combat labor abuses
British lawmakers have called for the creation of a garment industry watchdog to stop labor abuses at suppliers to fashion industry retailers such as Boohoo , saying voluntary codes to tackle exploitation are not working. Parliament’s cross-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), which has been investigating fashion sustainability for the ...
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Germany plans to protect human rights in global supply chains
On March 3, the German federal government approved a bill that aims to force local companies to respect human rights in their global supply chain. Parliament is expected to pass the draft legislation, commonly referred to as the Supply Chain Act, by the middle of the year. The legislation ...
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ArticleThree German retail associations merge to have more clout
Three German retail associations BTE (representing apparel), BDSE (footwear) and BLE (leathergoods) have decided to merge this year to form the BTE Handelsverband Textil, Schuh, Lederwaren . The combination will give the new assocation more clout in defending the interests of their members “alongside and in line ...
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ArticleThe U.K. to regulate the “buy now pay later” market
The British government announced that the increasingly popular interest-free ”buy now pay later” (BNPL) credit agreements will be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in order to protect consumers. The government noted that the volume of transactions involving BNPL solutions more than tripled in 2020 as the ...
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ArticleItalian shoemakers seek geographical indication protection from EU
The municipality of Monte Urano, led its mayor, Moira Canigola , is seeking to obtain geographical indication protection from the European Commission for the footwear cluster located in the Fermo-Macerata area in the Marche region. The town asked the Commission to consider widening IG protection to non-food products. ...
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EU Commission calls to ‘strongly discourage’ intra-EU travel
The European Commission has proposed the European Council to discourage non-essential travel between European Union member states amid high Covid-19 infection rates and concerns about new virus variants, while avoiding border closures or blanket prohibitions that would impede the functioning of the internal market and supply chains. ...
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ArticleEU, China reach in principle an agreement on investments
After seven years of talks, the European Union and China have agreed in principle on an investment agreement after their leaders met on a conference call on Dec. 30. The parties had set the end of 2020 as the deadline to strike a deal. The European Commission said that ...
