ROME: The trial of fashion house duo Dolce & Gabbana for allegedly failing to declare 840 million euros ($1.1 billion) in revenues to tax authorities in Italy opened Monday, according to local media reports.
The trial was immediately postponed until next week, after the defence team for Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbano called for the case to be thrown out on the grounds that some legal documents had been omitted, the reports said.
Judge Antonella Brambilla said she would rule on the plea on December 14.
The designers' lawyer, Massimo Dinoia, was not available for comment.
The pair are accused of having transferred control of their Dolce & Gabbana and D&G brands to a shell company in Luxembourg in 2004 and 2005, thereby avoiding paying Italian taxes of around 420 million euros ($550 million).
Prosecutors in the case have argued that setting up the Luxembourg company Gado -- an acronym of the surnames of the two designers -- while the company was still operating out of Italy, was an attempt to defraud the state.
Dolce and Gabbana, whose celebrity clients include Beyonce and Madonna, have repeatedly denied the accusations.
Investigators completed an probe into the designers, as well as five other people, in 2010 and the case was dismissed in April 2011 but reopened in November last year when Italy's highest court ruled the pair must face trial.
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