Dolce & Gabbana Sued Over NFT Sale

Dolce & Gabbana has reportedly been sued by a customer who said he spent $6,000 on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) offered by the company, only to have them arrive late and without the benefits that were promised.

The plaintiff brought the case on behalf of a proposed class of people who had similar experiences, Bloomberg reported Thursday (May 16).

Dolce & Gabbana did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

The suit alleges that the company said the NFTs would come with outfits to wear in the metaverse and would provide access to digital rewards, physical products and exclusive events, according to the report.

It further alleges that the outfits arrived 20 days late, that they could only be used on a metaverse platform “with barely any users,” and that they couldn’t be used for another 11 days after they were received because Dolce & Gabbana hadn’t received approval from the metaverse platform, the report said.

The NFTs have lost 97% of their value, meaning the plaintiff has lost $5,800, the suit alleges, per the report.

The suit was filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court, according to the report.

It was reported in January that sales of NFTs fell 63% to $8.7 billion in 2023, after having been a defining feature of the crypto bull market in 2021.

In January, GameStop announced it was getting out of the NFT arena and would wind down its NFT marketplace “due to the continuing regulatory uncertainty of the crypto space.”

The company unveiled its NFT marketplace in July 2022, saying it would let gamers, creators and collectors buy, sell and trade the digital art collectibles.

GameStop also ended its support of a digital asset wallet in November.

In August, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it brought charges against Impact Theory, alleging that the company conducted an unregistered offering of crypto asset securities in the form of purported NFTs, raising $30 million in the process.

The SEC said Impact Theory did not admit or deny its findings but agreed to an order requiring it to “pay a combined total of more than $6.1 million in disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and a civil penalty.”

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