The legal crisis gradually became a corporate collapse. On March 26, 2009, Eliana Tranchesi, her brother Antônio Carlos Piva de Albuquerque, and five other defendants were convicted of smuggling, organized crime, and tax evasion. Eliana and Antônio received extraordinary sentences of 94 years and six months, while other defendants received terms ranging from 11 to 53 years; all seven were released roughly 36 hours later after obtaining habeas corpus while appeals proceeded. Tranchesi’s lawyer argued that the punishment was wildly disproportionate to comparable Brazilian cases, and some supporters claimed the prosecution was being used to divert attention from broader government corruption scandals. In 2011, Daslu sold itself to a private-equity fund for 65 million reais, with Tranchesi receiving only R$1,000 for her shares while the transaction restructured the company’s debts. After her death from lung cancer in 2012, the surviving business continued to deteriorate: in October 2016, a shopping center secured eviction for R$3 million in unpaid rent, reports identified more than R$100 million in additional debts and salary-payment problems, and the remaining stores eventually closed. The Daslu name was finally purchased at auction by Mitre Realty in June 2022, leaving the former symbol of Brazilian luxury as a distressed real-estate and intellectual-property asset.
Preparing the daily feature…
AI concept artworkArchive Record · 2010s
From Brazil’s Fashion Mecca to Bankruptcy, Eviction, and a Brand Auction
Daslu / 2010s
The legal crisis gradually became a corporate collapse. On March 26, 2009, Eliana Tranchesi, her brother Antônio Carlos Piva de Albuquerque, and five other defendants were convicted of smuggling, organized crime, and tax evasion. Eliana and Antônio received extraordinary sentences of 94 years and six months, while other defendants received terms ranging from 11 to 53 years; all seven were released roughly 36 hours later after obtaining habeas corpus while appeals proceeded. Tranchesi’s lawyer argued that the punishment was wildly disproportionate to comparable Brazilian cases, and some supporters claimed the prosecution was being used to divert attention from broader government corruption scandals. In 2011, Daslu sold itself to a private-equity fund for 65 million reais, with Tranchesi receiving only R$1,000 for her shares while the transaction restructured the company’s debts. After her death from lung cancer in 2012, the surviving business continued to deteriorate: in October 2016, a shopping center secured eviction for R$3 million in unpaid rent, reports identified more than R$100 million in additional debts and salary-payment problems, and the remaining stores eventually closed. The Daslu name was finally purchased at auction by Mitre Realty in June 2022, leaving the former symbol of Brazilian luxury as a distressed real-estate and intellectual-property asset.
The daily editorial is currently unavailable. There’s still an entire archive to explore.