By
Bloomberg
Published
May 18, 2024
Dolce & Gabbana USA Inc. was sued by a customer who claims that the NFTs he spent $6,000 on that came with clothing to wear in the metaverse lost 97% of their value because the Italian luxury fashion house failed in the delivery.
According to the complaint, the company sold non-fungible tokens that were promoted as having “a series of digital, physical and experiential benefits” and that could be bought and sold on the Ethereum cryptocurrency blockchain. Dolce & Gabbana allegedly told consumers that purchasing NFTs from DGFamily would give them access to various digital rewards, physical products, and exclusive events.
But delivery of the NFTs was delayed and customers were promised special benefits, according to the complaint filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court. The digital devices that appeared 20 days late “could only be used on a metaverse platform with hardly any users,” according to the complaint.
Even after the launch of the digital sets, token holders were still unable to use them for another 11 days because Dolce Gabbana had not obtained approval from the metaverse platform in advance, according to the complaint.
“Their standard operating procedure has been to promise products that they do not deliver, before abandoning a project and community they promised to support,” the attorneys wrote in the complaint.
Luke Brown, who filed the lawsuit, says he lost $5,800 on the NFTs he purchased. Brown brought the case on behalf of a proposed group of people who purchased digital assets from the NFT project.
The complaint also names NFT marketplace UNXD as a defendant. Dolce Gabbana and UNXD did not immediately respond outside normal business hours to requests for comment.
The case is Brown v. Dolce Gabbana USA Inc., 24-cv-03807, United States District Court, Southern District of New York.
