La Redoute: the €1 sale that ended Kering's 20-year mail-order bet
France's catalogue-shopping institution lost money every year as sales fell 10%; in 2014 Kering recapitalized it, then sold it to its own managers for €1.
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2,000 CASOS PUBLICADOS · ATUALIZADOS REGULARMENTESingtel's fixed-voice outage cut emergency calls for 500,000 users and drew a S$1M fine
A shared firewall failed under a traffic spike, cutting Singtel's fixed-voice service and emergency calls for about 500,000 users — worth a S$1M fine.
Ler o casoChinese Estates lost HKD 1.38B on Evergrande shares — a 12-year bet ended in fire sale
Joseph Lau's investment firm sold 108.9 million Evergrande shares at a loss of HKD 1.38B, ending a 12-year relationship with the developer.
Ler o casoKalyan Silks' Onam ad promised ₹1,500 back; fine print made it ₹4,500 more spending
A 'spend ₹3,000, get ₹1,500' Onam offer delivered coupons locked behind ₹4,500 of future purchases. An 81-year-old litigated — and won ₹31,500.
Ler o casoQatar Foundation fired Sidra's hospital builder and won QR1bn ($275m) in arbitration
QF hired OHL-Contrack in 2009 to build Sidra Medicine, terminated the £1.9bn contract for delays in 2014, and a decade later won QR1bn in ICC damages.
Ler o casoRichemont forgave €100M of Delvaux's debt — the price of a bad Asian bet
Bought in 2021 and kept alive by a €90M loan, Delvaux had €100.6M of debt and ~€80M of accumulated losses when Richemont converted the loan to equity.
Ler o casoPG&E poisoned a town's water with chromium — $333M class-action settlement
PG&E dumped hexavalent chromium into unlined ponds for 14 years. The Erin Brockovich case ended with a $333M settlement and $750M+ in cleanup.
Ler o casoVincent & Co sold ₩97M 'Swiss' watches assembled in a Korean basement for ₩100K
A fabricated 'century-old Swiss brand' fooled Korean celebrities and chaebol heirs. The watches were made in Siheung City. The mastermind got four years.
Ler o casoPatreon moved fees to patrons — $1 became $1.38, and creators watched pledges evaporate
Patreon announced fees would shift to patrons, making a $1 pledge cost $1.38. Creators revolted as pledges vanished — and Patreon reversed in a week.
Ler o casoFreedom 251 sold a ₹251 smartphone to 70 million registrants — then the arrests began
Ringing Bells priced a smartphone below component cost, collected money from buyers and distributors, delivered a fraction — and ended in fraud arrests.
Ler o casoA chemist forgot to wash his hands — and discovered a sweetener that survived a ban
In 1879, Constantin Fahlberg forgot to wash his hands after a day in the lab. His dinner bread tasted sweet. He had discovered saccharin.
Ler o casoCool Kicks resold $500K of train-stolen Nikes — its founder was arrested live on WhatNot
LAPD raided celeb-faved LA resale shop Cool Kicks, arresting founder Adeel Shams and seizing $500K of Nike stolen off trains.
Ler o casoRichemont held Shanghai Tang for 19 years — a Chinese luxury brand no Chinese buyer wanted
Shanghai Tang was China's first global luxury brand. Richemont held it 19 years; it never turned a profit, and was sold for no material impact.
Ler o casoASX spent five years and A$250M on a blockchain CHESS — then wrote it off
Australia's stock exchange spent five years and a quarter of a billion dollars replacing its core settlement system with blockchain, then scrapped it.
Ler o casoAnglo Irish Bank's property bet cost Ireland €34.7B
Anglo Irish Bank lent 100% loan-to-value to property developers. When the bubble burst, one bank alone cost Ireland €34.7B.
Ler o casoA 'one candy replaces a plate of vegetables' claim jailed two Vietnamese livestreamers
Kera vegetable candy was sold on a fiber claim a lab test could not support: two Vietnamese livestreamers were fined, then prosecuted and detained.
Ler o casoMizuho's eight system failures in 2021 drew two FSA orders and resignations
After a ¥400B core-system renewal, Mizuho Bank suffered eight IT failures in 2021; the FSA issued two business improvement orders and top executives resigned.
Ler o casoiRhythm's $45M settlement over Zio AT marketing to high-risk patients
iRhythm marketed its Zio AT monitor as near real-time for high-risk patients without FDA clearance, then settled the securities class action for $45 million.
Ler o casoKYB stored 5,756 dies at 167 suppliers — including tooling they paid to renew
The shock-absorber giant kept tooling warehoused free at 167 suppliers — even dies they had funded themselves — until the JFTC made storage a bill KYB pays.
Ler o casoWish went from a $24 IPO to a $173M fire sale in three years
ContextLogic's Wish app IPO'd at $24 in 2020 on huge ad spend. The customers never came back; in 2024 the whole business sold for $6.50 a share.
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