The court rejected claims against Dolce & Gabbana in the case of the failure of the NFT initiative DGFamily
Date: 2025-07-15 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: BUSINESS
The Manhattan District Court, headed by Naomi Rice Buchwald, considered the claims filed by investors against Dolce & Gabbana. The judge emphasized that the American structure of the brand is not an authorized representative of Dolce & Gabbana SRL, which owns the management of the DGFamily project.
The history of the conflict began in the spring of 2024, when a group of investors filed a complaint with the court. It stated that the company was actively promoting an NFT collection called DGFamily and promised token holders special bonuses - access to limited collections of clothes, invitations to closed events and other privileges. According to the plan, the brand intended to organize eight NFT releases over two years.
The project sold five thousand digital boxes at prices ranging from 40 to 1,224 ETH, which at the time of launch was approximately $3,600–$120,000 per box. However, buyers faced numerous deadline violations — the first drop took place almost two weeks later than promised. In addition, token holders were unable to use their NFTs in the DecentraLand metaverse for up to 11 days, as the project allegedly did not receive timely approval from the DecentraLand administration.
Luke Brown, one of the parties to the lawsuit, claims that he lost about $5,800 by investing in DGFamily. According to him, the developers stopped supporting the project and did not fulfill their obligations, although the clients' funds remained with the company.
In their complaint, the investors insisted that the Dolce & Gabbana divisions act as a single entity, having common managers and offices. However, the judge disagreed, noting that the plaintiffs had wrongfully extended their claims to all divisions of the brand simply because of the common name.
When Brown attempted to make further adjustments to the complaint, the judge rejected the motion, noting that such an opportunity had already been provided after objections from the defendants. At the moment, Dolce & Gabbana USA remains the only defendant in the US, while the original application also included UNXD from Dubai and Bluebear Italia from Italy. No formal charges were brought against these companies.
It is worth noting that a similar situation previously occurred with Nike. In April, investors filed a lawsuit against it due to the suspension of the NFT project RTFKT, accusing the company of issuing unregistered securities.
Thus, the litigation around NFT projects of major brands demonstrates how difficult it is to regulate promises and obligations in the digital environment.
