Miss Tweed : Armani denies rumors that Hedi Slimane may join

Armani denies rumors that Hedi Slimane may join

Giorgio Armani, the king of timeless elegance and founder of one of Italy’s last remaining independent fashion brands, denied on Friday that he was in talks to hire the French designer Hedi Slimane.

Slimane left Celine last month after more than doubling the French label’s sales to €2.5 billion – roughly the size of Armani’s fashion business. In the past few weeks, there has been speculation that Armani, who turned 90 in July, could be preparing to pass the design baton to Slimane.

Several industry sources said Slimane was looking to buy a flat in Milan and this fuelled rumors that he could be preparing to join Armani. Although Slimane’s record is strong and he is seen as a good fit, Armani denied it was talking to the French designer.

“These are unfounded rumors,” a spokeswoman for Armani told Miss Tweed in an email.

Several senior industry sources said this week they heard there had been talks between Slimane and Armani and this made sense.

Like Armani, Slimane’s fashion involves a lot of tailoring and black and white. No matter how talented Giorgio Armani may be and how popular his designs and shows, he is not immortal.

PRADA EXAMPLE
Some industry sources said it would be wise for the Italian couturier to prepare for the future in a way similar to Miuccia Prada. Four years ago, Prada stunned many in the industry when she hired Raf Simons to co-design Prada’s collections with her.

The duo has defied doubters who believed Miuccia Prada would struggle to work with another designer. The new ethos of co-design at the heart of Prada has been highly successful, helping Prada beat the industry’s worst downturn in recent history. Prada’s retail sales were up 4 percent in the nine months to Sept. 30.

Simons, 56, has given Miuccia Prada more freedom and mindspace to focus on the smaller sister brand Miu Miu and develop it with gusto. Every major brand has suffered a drop in sales this year but Miu Miu’s revenue was up 97 percent in the first nine months of the year. An impressive feat. Miuccia Prada, 75, is confident Prada’s creative direction will be in good hands when she decides to retire and leaves Simons in charge.

Miuccia Prada, Italy’s female fashion authority, could inspire Armani himself to consider hiring an experienced pair of hands, as she did, such as Slimane, to prepare for the day when he can no longer design and work.

CHANEL MISTAKE
Chanel’s owners, the Wertheimers, made the mistake of not looking for a proper replacement for many years before Karl Lagerfeld died in 2019. They opted for the easy solution of continuity by appointing his right-hand woman Virginie Viard as Chanel’s creative director instead of hunting for someone who could bring a strong new creative vision into the brand and keep it relevant.

Viard helped the French powerhouse muddle along and continue to grow sales, albeit more thanks to steep price increases in leathergoods than to higher volumes. Stepping into the big shoes of Lagerfeld, a visionary and a genius, was never going to be easy. It turned out Viard did not have that much to say from a cultural point of view and her last collections appeared out of sync with the times, fashion critics said. Last week, Miss Tweed was first to report that Bottega Veneta’s Matthieu Blazy, a Franco-Belgian designer with roots in Antwerp’s creative design cauldron, was the top contender to replace Viard. His appointment could be announced as early as next month.

Giorgio Armani may not want to repeat the Wertheimers’ strategic mistake and prepare for the future better. The designer has several people in-house whom he has trained to replace him should he keel over tomorrow. He regularly invites them to take a final bow at his side after his shows. However, he is not only a talented couturier but also a shrewd businessman.

He is one of the few people in this industry said to have “a right brain and a left brain,” in other words business acumen as well as fashion vision. This is rare. Normally, two different people embody such skills – the CEO and the designer. Armani has both. This dual talent enabled him to create a fashion juggernaut and conquer the world in spite of his humble origins in a provincial town outside Milan.

LOSS OF RELEVANCE
No doubt the nonagenarian knows that the day he is no longer in charge, and the brand continues to be designed by people in-house, it risks losing relevance over the years unless he finds a rare talent with a strong point of view.

Should the company be sold, Armani would be worth much more with a designer in place, ready to take it to the next level, than without a designated successor, which would create uncertainty about the company’s future. Slimane, who is 56, has a big fan club. Among his admirers was Lagerfeld. The late German designer liked to say he forced himself to lose 42 kilos to fit in Slimane’s tight-fitting suits after he started as creative director of Dior menswear in 2000, a job that would propel him to stardom and which he kept for seven years.

In an interview with Le Figaro in 2013, when Slimane was the creative director of Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani had said he admired Slimane’s work. “Hedi is a poet,” he told the French daily. “But our business is measured in concrete terms, and obviously his Saint Laurent is selling very well,” he added. That’s important for the Italian couturier.

Every brand Slimane has worked for has seen its sales grow significantly. The French designer would make Giorgio Armani feel more relaxed about the future of the company he founded in 1975. Armani’s sales in 2023 totalled €2.44 billion, up6percent at constant exchange rates.

However, license revenues from products such its as perfume, cosmetics and eyewear were down, the company said,declining to provide precise details. Armani said this was a sign of weaker demand for accessible luxury. Armani also declined to disclose how bad the decline was in fashion sales in the first half of this year and in the second half of 2023. When the company released its 2023 and first-half statement for 2024 in July, it would only say that the decline was “in single digits” in percentage terms. However, its profitability last year remained stable, it said.

OPEN TO A DEAL
Armani said total brand turnover, with fashion revenues and including those generated by its licenses with L’Oréal and Luxottica, stood at about €4.5 billion in 2023-- a 2.6 percent decrease comparedwith2022. In its statement, the company pointed out that the total retail value of Armani-branded products worldwide stood at approximately €6.5 billion for 2023.

So, would Giorgio Armani be open to a possible deal?

For decades, the patriarch of Italian fashion flatly refused to countenance a merger or a sale of his company. However,this year, on the cusp of his 90th birthday, the billionaire tycoon, who started out as a window dresser in Milan department stores, told Bloomberg he “couldn't rule anything out.”

In his written interview with Bloomberg in April, the veteran couturier said that he “currently did not envisage a takeover by a large luxury conglomerate” but stressed that he did not “want to exclude anything a priori because that would be an ‘unentrepreneurial’ course of action.” Asked about a potential IPO, he said: “Listing is something we have not yet discussed, but it is an option that may be considered, hopefully in the distant future.”

Senior bankers in Milan say that, should Armani consider even selling a stake, “everyone” would be interested. That ranges from LVMH to Kering to Prada to Mayhoola, the Qatari investment fund that controls Valentino and Balmain. John Elkann, the Fiat scion behind family office Exor, has spoken at least twice with Armani about buying the company but talks,which started in 2021, never amounted to anything because of disagreements over prices, industry sources have said. Still, one veteran fashion executive in Milan who knows Armani well, says it is widely expected Elkann will want to try again to negotiate with Armani's heirs after the tycoon's death.

There is some speculation a foundation could lock up Armani's ownership once he dies, but bankers say they expect heirs will be able to make their own decisions once any lock-up expires, if there is one. Expectations are that the sale of Armani is likely to take place once Armani himself is no longer in the driver's seat. However,given he rules Armani as a dictatorship, bankers are all “at the window” ready to jump should the man suddenly decide, even in his waning months and years,that he would like to do a deal after all.

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Armani would benefit not only from new design blood, but also from clearer and more transparent corporate governance. The company is run by managing director Giuseppe Marsocci, to whom regional bosses and different Armani sub-brands report, and Daniele Ballestrazzi, who is finance director and chief operating officer.

Giorgio Armani likes to keep power split within his company. A spokeswoman would not disclose who was in charge of production, an important position within the company. She said: “There are no other management figures we are disclosing.”

On the board of Armani sit several members of the founder’s family, including Andrea Camerana, his nephew and John Elkann’s cousin via their grandmother. A potential deal with Elkann would allow Armani to“remain in the family,” industry sources said, and preserve its independence.

Camerana, who founded the Italian publishing house Pelledoca Editore, returned to work full-time for Armani in 2021 as sustainability managing director. Camerana had left in 2014 following a spat with management but he never left the board, on which he sits with Armani cousins Roberta and Silvana and his mother Rosanna.

Also on Armani’s board is Federico Marchetti, Yoox-Net-A-Porter (YNAP) former CEO and founder of Yoox. Giorgio Armani recruited him in 2020 to help craft the company’s digital strategy. Marchetti, who made tens of millions of euros by offloading his lossmaking company to Richemont, was once eyeing the CEO job at Armani.

He is no longer very involved with the company, several industry sources said. The YNAP disaster has not reflected particularly well on Marchetti, they said. Marchetti and Armani did not respond to requests for comment on that point.

Strange that Marchetti would have advised Armani on digital matters, since it is one of the few Italian brands of its size and importance that does not sell on online fashion retail websites such as Farfetch, or NAP or rival Mytheresa, which has just been promised a big cheque from Richemont once regulatory authorities clear its acquisition of YNAP. Armani, however, sells on the discount website Yoox, which Marchetti founded in 2000. Armani declined to confirm whether Yoox was still powering its e-commerce business and what would happen once the business belonged to rival Mytheresa.

Also on Armani’s board sits Leo Dell'Orco, a close associate of Armani who has worked for his company for more than four decades and is head of the men's styling department for the Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani and Armani Exchange collections. Together with Marchetti, they are the only non-family board members.

REPUTATION SUFFERED
The Armani Group is run in a top-down, paternalistic fashion. The company provides jobs for life and is known for taking good care of its staff and business partners. However, like LVMH’s Dior, it is in dire need of tighter control over its supply chain. Armani and Dior’s reputations suffered this year after they were both busted by the Italian police for relying on underpaid Chinese immigrants to produce some of their expensive handbags. The police told the media that Chinese subcontractors were paid €93 for an Armani handbag, which the fashion house would sell for about €1,800 in its boutiques.

Italy’s last independent megabrands such as Armani, Prada Group, Zegna and Dolce & Gabbana all want to be king of their own patch and resent the fact that LVMH is much bigger and the French group and its archrival Kering have snapped up many big Italian brands in the past 20 years. Giorgio Armani may deny he is in talks with Slimane but he has not said his last word yet.

FT : The Look of Love — Bacharach and David’s song was perfect for a Bond movie

The Look of Love — Bacharach and David’s song was perfect for a Bond movie
Dusty Springfield recorded the 1967 track for a seduction scene in ‘Casino Royale’


The comedian and filmmaker Mike Myers was on his way home from hockey practice in Los Angeles when “The Look of Love” came on the car radio. Myers’ British-born father, who had recently died, had always loved the scene in the spoof Bond movie Casino Royale featuring the song — Ursula Andress leading Peter Sellers through a luxury apartment to a sunken sofa, where she seduces him. Those three and a half minutes “just delighted my dad, because it was a combination of Sellers, James Bond and Burt Bacharach”, he recalled in 1997.

And in that flash of memory came a moment of inspiration: “I instantly felt the character and the movie of Austin Powers enter my brain.”

It’s entirely understandable. That Dusty Springfield recording of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s song still summons a particular vision of the 1960s: one not of flower power and the Democratic convention in Chicago and the Soixante-Huitards, but of little red Alfas, cocktails at dusk, beautiful people in beautiful clothes doing beautiful things. Bacharach had written music that was intended to reflect Andress’s appeal: the music had to sound sexy, and what is sexier than bossa nova?

Though Bacharach was always the more high-profile of the pair, “The Look of Love” is elevated by David’s lyric, something that is apparent when you listen to the first recorded version, an instrumental by Stan Getz, from late in 1966. It’s beautiful and sophisticated, but without the tang David adds, it’s subtle and sensuous rather than indelible. The lyric was added at the last minute, for the movie, and it transforms the song: with words, the scene with Sellers and Andress makes perfect sense — it is itself a seduction.

David’s conceit is to use words to describe everything that is said without speaking: “The look of love is in your eyes”, “And what my heart has heard, it takes my breath away”, “I can hardly wait to hold you, feel my arms around you”. It’s a song that embraces sexiness without ever straying anywhere near raciness. It is perfectly judged.

According to Elvis Costello, its status as a standard means it should be considered the greatest Bond theme. “How many people are gonna get up there and say, ‘I’m gonna sing a standard now,’ and sing ‘Thunderball’? Nobody,” he said after Bacharach’s death. “But people are going to sing ‘The Look of Love’, and ‘The Look of Love’ is from Casino Royale, even if that’s the anomaly of the Bond films.”

This is the rare song where the creator’s own version is inessential. Bacharach’s recording, on his 1967 album Reach Out, is instrumental, and misses David’s lyric just as Getz’s did. The pair’s great muse, Dionne Warwick, sang it in 1969, taking it at a slower pace than Springfield had, with more insistent rhythm, and a sense of regret and pain. When she sings of wanting it to be “the first of many nights like this”, it seems more in hope than expectation.

The first big hit version, though, was by neither of those. It came from Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 — sung by Janis Hansen — and reached number four in the US after they performed at the 1968 Oscars. It’s brassy and over-egged, with backing vocals that date it instantly. As could sometimes be the case, Nina Simone sounds less desirous than faintly disapproving on her version. Andy Williams is processed white bread compared to Springfield’s sourdough.

Of the big cabaret stars who sang it, the most interesting version was Shirley Bassey’s, from 1972, which begins with stark wah-guitar and rattling cymbals, like the opening of The Beatles’ “Come Together”. It suggests that maybe we’ll be getting something in the stark vein of Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain”, but then the strings get slathered on. The chorus leaps into storming R&B, and you can sense the record it might have been had someone had the foresight to do less. Certainly not doing less was Isaac Hayes, who turned it into 11 minutes of sinewy funk.

Great singers have continued to record excellent versions — Shelby Lynne, Diana Krall — but one of the most interesting journeys has been that of the 1969 recording by the guitarist Barney Kessel, part of the famed “Wrecking Crew” of LA session players. His version was sampled by the great underground hip-hop producer J Dilla on the track “Look of Love” by his rap group Slum Village. After Dilla’s death in 2006, the jazz pianist Robert Glasper took the sample used by Dilla and played it himself as part of “Dillalude No 2”, one of his tributes to Dilla. And the song came full circle: once again sounding like beautiful people in beautiful clothes doing beautiful things, generations later.

L'Informé : L’intense pressing de Decathlon sur Intersport

L’intense pressing de Decathlon sur Intersport
L’enseigne de la famille Mulliez accuse son concurrent de violer la réglementation pour des opérations commerciales et des ouvertures de magasins le dimanche. Elle multiplie les procès… avec un succès mitigé.

La concurrence est plus vive que jamais dans la distribution d’articles de sport. Avec l’absorption récente de 68 magasins Go Sport, Intersport entend bien talonner le leader, Decathlon. L’enseigne coopérative vise 4 milliards d’euros de chiffre d’affaires en 2024, plus si loin des 4,75 milliards réalisés l’an dernier par le distributeur de la famille Mulliez.

De façon plus discrète, ce duel se retrouve aussi devant la justice. Et là, c’est Decathlon qui mène l’attaque. Depuis un an et demi, pas moins de quatorze procédures différentes ont donné lieu à des décisions de tribunaux de commerce ou de juridictions d’appel, selon le recensement de l’Informé. À chaque fois, l’enseigne nordiste reproche à son concurrent des pratiques commerciales illicites. Un activisme que les avocats d’Intersport ne se sont pas privés de tacler à plusieurs reprises.  « La société Decathlon France perdant des parts de marché depuis 2018 a engagé une guerre judiciaire à l’encontre du réseau Intersport en multipliant les procédures », ont-ils affirmé aux juges. Comme sur le terrain commercial, le combat à la barre est serré. Pas de KO à l’horizon : le leader du secteur mène aux points, mais de peu.

Son principal cheval de bataille ? La contestation des ouvertures dominicales. Elles constituent l’essentiel des procédures recensées par L’Informé. Une petite dizaine de magasins Intersport de la moitié nord de la France, poursuivis chacun à titre individuel, sont concernés. Decathlon les accuse d’ouvrir le dimanche bien plus souvent que les arrêtés municipaux ne le permettent.

En première ligne, les points de vente de l’homme d’affaires picard Bernard Joannin, l’un des principaux acteurs du groupement coopératif Intersport, par ailleurs président du club de foot Amiens SC. Son magasin d’Amiens, justement, aurait ouvert « à au moins 38 reprises » en dehors des autorisations du maire entre 2019 et 2023. Celui de Saint-Martin-lès-Boulogne (Pas-de-Calais), dont il est aussi propriétaire, une cinquantaine de fois. Les avocats des points de vente ont tenté de défendre une lecture de la réglementation autorisant l’ouverture tous les dimanches. En vain.

Decathlon a notamment obtenu une série de quatre décisions favorables de la cour d’appel d’Amiens le 10 octobre et trois autres de la cour d’appel de Douai le 12 septembre. Les magasins visés sont soumis à des astreintes de 30 000 à 50 000 € pour chaque nouvelle ouverture illicite. Un pourvoi en cassation reste toutefois possible.

Autre front ouvert par Decathlon : la contestation des opérations du type vente en liquidation. La loi autorise ces dernières pour écouler des stocks dans des circonstances particulières (notamment à perte), comme avant un déménagement ou une fermeture pour travaux. L’enseigne nordiste suspecte certains Intersport d’en profiter pour écluser les marchandises d’autres points de vente de la région.

Pour le prouver, elle dépêche régulièrement des huissiers lors de ces opérations. Et les deux groupes s’écharpent ensuite au tribunal sur la validité des constats. Ces dernières semaines, ceux réalisés en 2020 dans le magasin Intersport de Fayet Saint-Quentin (Aisne) ont été définitivement annulés par la cour de cassation, tandis que d’autres diligentés en juin 2022 dans le point de vente de Saint-Dizier ont été validés par la cour d’appel de Dijon.

Cette année, la chaîne des Mulliez a aussi tenté un dernier type d’attaque… qui lui a valu un sévère désaveu de la part du tribunal de commerce d’Évry. Accusant son concurrent de mener des promotions trompeuses, Decathlon réclamait 900 000 € de dommages et intérêts. Dans son viseur : des offres affichant des prix réduits, sur intersport.fr, pour des vélos électriques de la marque maison, Nakamura. Selon Decathlon, les promotions s’étaient enchaînées sans discontinuer pendant six mois fin 2021-début 2022, sans que jamais le prix indiqué comme prix de référence soit pratiqué. L’enseigne reprochait aussi l’emploi de mentions trompeuses comme « quantités limitées » ou « déstockage massif ». Mais le tribunal n’a pas suivi : il « ne décèle pas dans [ces] pratiques marketing une action suffisamment significative pour modifier sensiblement le comportement du consommateur en le trompant délibérément » sur la réalité de la promotion. Selon nos informations, Decathlon a fait appel.

Contactées, ni Intersport ni Decathon n’ont souhaité commenter nos informations.

Forbes : Intel’s MobilEye Levels Up To Take On Tesla And Others In Self-Driving

Intel’s MobilEye Levels Up To Take On Tesla And Others In Self-Driving

MobilEye, an IntelINTC +0.2% company, announced at CES the newest generation of their custom chip for automotive driving, known as the EyeQ Ultra, a 176 TOPS processor with various specialized components they claim will be all you need for self-driving and a Robotaxi. Indeed, they plan to operate their own robotaxi services as well as partner with many other players wishing to enter that space. I sat down with Amnon Shashua, CEO and founder of MobilEye, to discuss their strategy. After reading this article, you can watch my interview to hear Shashua in his own words:

MobilEye’s efforts are serious, based on their long history in ADAS (their chips power the advanced driver assist and “pilot” systems in the majority of OEMs, with over 100 million chips shipped) and the ability to use that fleet of cars to gather data for training and mapping. As part of Intel, they have top-tier ability to produce custom processors. They are also using Intel’s silicon photonics and other resources to generate a new high performance LIDAR and imaging radar. They combine this with several unusual approaches and a system of safety constraints on their motion planner in hope of leading the field.

MobilEye’s efforts sit in constrast with TeslaTSLA +3.8%, which certainly gets the most attention among car OEMs for their efforts, and Waymo, which is the overall robotaxi leader, though it has many competitors.

Shashua goes into a lot of depth on the strategy in this recent video. As it’s an hour long it’s more than most casual readers will watch, but the seriously curious should consider investing the time. There is also an edited 9 minute version, which you should view if you don’t have time for the full hour. I will summarize key points below.

Here are the prongs of MobilEye’s strategy and key advantages:

  • Their long experience in providing camera-based ADAS to a wide variety of vehicles for over 10 years, with a belief that self-driving is essentially ADAS with a much better MTBF (mean time between failures.)
  • Their huge collection of cars already on the road — over 188 vehicle models, with 41 new vehicles this year, and 50 million new cars in the near future. This has created a very large network of potential partners in self-driving deployment.
  • Their new EyeQ Ultra chip with 170 TOPS including 12 risc cores, 256 gigaflops, many GPU and accelerator cores and more, at less than 100 watts — 10x the performance of the previous EyeQ5 generation which is already powering prototype robotaxis.
  • A new FMCW LIDAR being made-in house, to begin shipping in 2024
  • An imaging radar, now sampled and shipping in 2025 with high resolution and performance
  • Their “true redundancy” approach to perception where they are building two completely independent perception stacks, one based on cameras/vision, and the other based on the LIDAR and radar. If either one identifies an obstacle, it is detected. Either can fail and the car drives (though not nearly as well.)
  • In connection with the above, a “Camera first, but also LIDAR/radar” approach in contrast with the “LIDAR first, but also camera/radar” of many other teams or the “Camera only” strategy of Tesla.
  • Their “REM” mapping system, where millions of cars equipped with their chips are constantly reporting mapping details on the roads and uploading changes, to generate fresh maps which also contain learnings from watching how humans drive the roads.
  • 238 petabytes stored, and growing, of data for building maps and training neural networks and testing software. They are now processing 100 petabytes/month from 500K hours of driving.
  • Their “RSS” planning methodology, which constrains vehicles to basic principles of the law and safety, but allows them to be aggressive (like humans) within those constraints to handle chaotic roads like those of Israel where MobilEye is based.
  • Their experience building self-driving prototypes being developed in Israel, Munich, Paris, Tokyo and soon, New York, plus a new robotaxi project with Geely Zeekr based on 6 to 8 EQ5 chips and many sensors.

This is a very impressive list, and I wrote about many elements of it a year ago. MobilEye continues to be one of the few companies in the space to do something surprising. In particular, that they have gotten places with the strategy of “ADAS with a better MTBF” is at odds with the philosophy of almost all self-driving teams except Tesla.

MobilEye vs. Tesla
It is interesting to contrast them with Tesla. Tesla is the maverick of car OEMs, capable of and willing to try things no established OEM will do. MobilEye used to be the company that provided the technology for Tesla’s early Autopilot, but they pulled out when an Autopilot accident killed the driver, and because they knew Tesla wanted to build their own system. Both Tesla and MobilEye have tried the approach of building up and evolving ADAS, while most other teams feel that self-driving is so different as to require a dedicated effort. Former Tesla Autopilot leader Sterling Anderson, who co-founded Aurora, called it “trying to build a ladder to the moon.”

MobilEye is famous for having built ADAS with a camera (and optional radar) where previously it was an expensive radar. They are camera-centric, but believe LIDAR and radar provide important, though secondary functions. More than that, MobilEye is actually building its own custom high performance LIDAR and radar. Tesla calls LIDAR a “crutch” that distracts you from the real goal of an all computer-vision system. It has recently been almost as mean to radar, and removed radar from future vehicles, though probably mostly because of the chip shortage.

One of Tesla’s biggest assets is their fleet, which gathers data to help them train their machine learning. There are well over a million Teslas out there, which take regular software updates and help in the quest. They also have a vast number of users for Autopilot who return data all the time, and a growing number of testers of the ill-named “full self driving” prototype they are building. MobilEye has a larger fleet, with 100 million chips sold, and they just did deals with more car OEMs which will result in 50 million more cars using their latest chips. Unlike Tesla, they can’t constantly update the software in the cars, nor get them to report the volumes of data Tesla can ask because the carmaker customers pay for the mobile data. But for both, this fleet is a big asset.

MobilEye goes further than Tesla and exploits the fleet for mapping, while Tesla disdains the use of mapping beyond the navigation level. MobilEye’s REM project creates fairly sparse maps, but includes more than just lane geometry. In particular REM watches cars as they pause at intersections, creep forward and make turns to know where the sightlines are, and just where the drivers actually drive — not just where the lines on the road are.

Both companies design their own custom chips to provide the processing power, since neural networks and computer vision are hungry for that. As part of Intel, MobilEye has a strong advantage here — it’s arguably the top processor company in the world. Tesla uses external chip IP and contracts with external fabs to make their chips, though they do a good job for a non-chip company.

There is also a difference in management style. Elon Musk is perhaps the greatest entrepreneur in history, but his style is brash, with no fear of hype or outrageous efforts and statements. Amnon Shashua makes bold claims, but doesn’t go nearly as over the top as Musk.

MobilEye “True redundancy”
MobilEye wants to claim a trademark on this, but it’s perhaps the most questionable element of their strategy. They are building two completely different perception stacks, one vision only, and the other using the LIDAR and radar. While in earlier statements they indicated both could drive the car, there is only one planner.

The basic philosophy that different systems will make different mistakes is a strong one, but only to a point. The errors the two systems will make are not entirely indpendent. If your vision system fails once in 10,000 miles and and your LIDAR/RADAR fails at the same rate, you definitely not going to get a system that fails every 100 million miles — not even close. The MobilEye approach was described by Shashua as “an OR gate” meaning that if either system detects an obstacle, then one is viewed as present. This reduces your false negatives (blindness that can make you hit things) which is good, but also increases your false positives (ghosts you brake for.) Generally false positives and negatives are a trade-off. You can’t have blindness, but if your vehicle constantly reacts to ghosts it’s not a usable system.

Shashua realizes you don’t get to multiply the MTBFs but feels he will still get something “much, much better.” Most other teams try something more complex in their sensor fusion, rather than an “OR.” They try to fuse returns at different levels, starting at basic sensing, but sometimes going all the way to after classification. It’s not clear why the MobilEye approach is superior, except from a software engineering standpoint, as you can just put two different teams on the problems and not worry too much about integrating their work. He asks how the system will perform if you “shut down all the cameras” or the LIDARs. He states that you can look at his systems being tested in many cities and they are performing at a much higher level than purely camera based systems. For camera based system he asks, “If they shut down a subset of their sensors could they continue? ... I think not.”

MobilEye is also creating a “VIDAR” — a virtual LIDAR that attempts to make LIDAR like point clouds from 2D camera images using machine learning. Many, including Tesla are working on this, and it shows promising results but is not yet at “bet your life” reliability. That’s one reason they also have the LIDAR.

Indeed, the new imaging radar and LIDAR look impressive, though only modest details are revealed. They even have an experiment to see what it looks like if they take the imaging radar and try to turn it into an image video using deep learning — a challenge when you consider how little resolution is in even the best radar. Radar’s ability to see through most weather is a big plus in places where that’s crucial. Radar’s other big edge — knowing the speed of all returns thanks to Doppler — is also found in FMCW LIDAR. Indeed, if you have FMCW LIDAR, the virtues of radar are fewer. In addition to the weather penetration, it is cheaper (MobilEye plans only one forward facing LIDAR) and it also can see “invisible” objects because radar waves can bounce under cars to detect a vehicle 2 ahead of you that’s hidden by a big truck, at least if it’s moving.

Shashua is optimistic about his imaging radar. It can “with the right development become a standalone sensor. Today radar is not a standalone sensor.” In the future “It can compete with a LIDAR and then instead of having 360 degree LIDAR, you have only a front facing LIDAR and you can bring the cost down considerably.”

MobilEye REM maps
In keeping with MobilEye’s quest for what might be described as the “Goldilocks” point, their mapping system does not have the high detail of those from Waymo and other companies, but it has much more information than a “no HD maps” player like Tesla. REM maps, MobilEye states, take only about 10 kilobytes per mile, a cost which fits in the budget of the mobile data plans in the cars of their customers.

In the REM system, cars with the chips are using them to locate important road elements, including objects in 3-space, signs, lane boundaries, traffic signals and more. They are compressed down and uploaded if changed. In addition, the cars report their driving tracks (which can be accurately placed on the map.) These tracks reveal not just what is painted on the road, but what large numbers of cars have actually driven. Natural human driving often involves not being centered in the lane or taking an exit as drawn. MobilEye has noticed the common problem of unprotected turns, where cars must creep forward until the driver (or cameras) can see what they need to turn. Using the REM data, cars can know just where they need to get in order to see what they need to see, resulting in a more human-like driving pattern with less uncertainty. This also collects what might be called the unwritten rules of the road, the rules that human intelligence figures out, and makes them part of the map.

With the largest fleet, MobilEye equipped cars are likely to encounter any changes to the road quickly. This is not just the robotic fleet, but all the human driven cars able to handle construction zones and other changes, and even teach how to drive in them. The risk of coming upon areas where the world has changed from the map is overstated — all cars must be able to handle a wrong map gracefully, and for each construction zone or other change there is only one car that is the first to encounter it. MobilEye has the advantage that this is often a human driven car, making it unlikely any early robotaxi will be the very first, forcing it to exercise its “drive with a wrong map” skills. That’s in contrast with Tesla where the car has to use its “drive with no map” skills all the time.

RSS planning system
Driving safely is one (though far from the only) important factor in making a working self-driving car. The challenge is to be safe while also being a good “road citizen” which includes some aggressive behavior in order to make traffic flow in a large number of cities, especially MobilEye’s home territory of Israel. Chaotic driving there has led them to develop a set of rules for planning the car’s path that they call RSS (Responsibility sensitive safety) which constrain and enable paths for the car, keeping it’s actions legal and reasonably safe. Though it could be argued the approach guarantees the vehicle won’t violate the vehicle code, though that might involve it in unsafe situations because other vehicles ignore the code. Regular driving involves such situations regularly, and MobilEye is one of the few to talk about solving them.

That said, access to data about MobilEye’s real world performance is currently modest compared to what we know about some other companies. They are pushing for RSS to become an international standard, to get regulators to demand that RSS be implemented to get certified. I suspect more real world testing (or at least reporting) is called for before this is done.

Robotaxi plans
MobilEye is planning both to sell hardware and systems to carmakers, and also to build and deploy its own Robotaxis. MobilEye purchased MoovIt, a multimodal trip planning app, and is using it to allow users to book trips in its robotaxi pilots. It has stated it will begin robotaxi pilots in several cities this year and in the coming years. At the same time, it is helping Geely’s Zeekr produce its own Robotaxi with multiple EyeQ5 chips, and supplying delivery robot company Udelv with systems to drive their unmanned vehicles, with deployment not yet announced.

Shashua expects a world of “co-opetition” where suppliers are competing with their own partners. Certainly many of MobilEye’s customers plan their own robotaxi operations, either with MobilEye chips, or in cases like Ford, through the different system made by Argo.AI. This willingness to both supply car OEMs and startups and also operate its own service seems brash, but it positions the company as one of the few companies with efforts in both consumer cars and robotaxis, not worrying too much about which will win. (Or, in fact benefiting from the reality, which is that neither will overwhelmingly win for a long time.) Tesla plans to play in both areas in a clever way, but unfortunately with inferior hardware that relies on a longshot approach.

One thing still missing from the MobilEye story is real data about its robotaxi efforts. There are scores of teams developing robotaxis, all making big claims. Only a few, though, are backing up their claims by letting the public see an unvarnished picture of their performance, with real statistics, and allowing unvetted and unscheduled rides by members of the public who can publish videos. MobilEye has released nice videos of their vehicles driving various routes, as have many firms. These videos show sufficient capabilities to demonstrate that MobilEye is a player, but it’s a very, very, very, very long journey from that to having a working service.

Many of the signs from MobilEye are good, and the collection of strategic moves is superb. The proof, though, is in the quality of their system in a real robotaxi environment which we must wait to see. In the 2010s it was sufficient to show plans and research. Today actual operations and commitments are what matters, as outlined in the milestones of a robotaxi service. When a company actually does things, like deploy unmanned vehicles, it proves to us that their board of directors signed off on taking that big risk, which in turn means that their internal research said they were ready to make a “bet the company” move. For now, we only have MobilEye’s declarations that their “evolved ADAS” approach has surprised us and done the jobs, and we need to see those declarations made real. They probably won’t hit their target of “early in 2022” but promise that thanks to REM and other tools, they can deploy quickly in new cities with minimal effort.

At present, people have not been paying as much attention to MobilEye’s efforts nor valuing them the way that some companies have with dekaunicorn status. MobilEye used to be a public company until it was bought by Intel. Inside Intel, its efforts have not been able to move the needle of the chip giant’s valuation. This may be why Intel plans to spin-off MobilEye in a new IPO shortly, which Shashua could not comment on. It will be an interesting stock to watch.

Are we done yet?
Shashua believes that the robotaxi problem is close to solved. So close, in fact that he doesn’t think we’ll need more algorithmic breakthroughs, and as such we can say today what hardware is enough to do the job — and that’s the hardware he has put in the EyeQ Ultra chip. Indeed, they feel that 6 to 8 of the EyeQ 5 chips they offer today can do the job, which is what gives him the confidence that the EQU is enough.

That’s a fairly bold claim, because the history of the research teams that are the industry has been one of finding new techniques, and that has informed what hardware we actually want. But if you are a chipmaker, you have to decide what goes in your chip so you can tape it out and get it into production 3 years from now, so you need to choose well. MobilEye got lucky early on. They designed their earliest chips before neural networks exploded on the scene, but those chips had GPU-like elements for massive parallel processing that were able to run earlier, smaller neural networks. Now it’s not luck (and they might not call it that, but frankly very few could have predicted the big deep learning explosion of the early 2010s) and they have made their plan.

Cost
Most robotaxi developers aren’t strongly focused on cost. Almost all started using very expensive LIDARs that clearly cost too much for a production vehicle. They made the correct bet that the cost of the extra gear would drop greatly by the time things were ready to deploy. When your only goal is to get to market first by being safe first, cost is not that much of an issue.

MobilEye came to this by a different path. They began by making a camera based ADAS tool that could do things like adaptive cruise control for less than the automotive radars of the day. In addition, they could do it better, like handling stopped vehicles. They did very well with this. As they have tackled self-driving, cost has remained an issue for them.

The Ultra is planned to cost less than $1,000 in volume by 2025. The LIDAR will have an MSRP of about $1,000. While other vendors promise $250 LIDARs and Shashua says they could also produce on at that price, theirs will be higher performance and worth that cost. The full package of chip and sensors will come in “way below $5,000.” That cost of parts typically adds $10K to $15K to the cost of a consumer vehicle, but is a pretty reasonable cost addition to the cost of a robotaxi. Indeed, Larry Burns, a former VP of GM who consults in the industry, estimates that all the things you remove from a robotaxi — wheels, pedals, most of the dashboard, adjustable seats, mirrors and more — can easily cost more than the cost of the new additional sensors, making the robotaxi cheaper than a similar sized car.

Conclusion
MobilEye is one of the few companies to have it all: Experience, a huge fleet to draw mapping and training data from, extensive mapping efforts at very low cost, an FMCW LIDAR in the works, imaging radar, advanced computer vision, a trip-planning app, the ability to make its own silicon, low cost, robtaxis driving in complex cities and the most relationships of automakers of anybody in the game. While some players have better in some of these individual area, nobody has as good a combination. The key that remains to be seen is just how good their software is. Shashua said they are still working at getting their system to 1,000 hours between accidents but they are confident they will get there soon. That’s not there yet, as humans go 3,500 hours between minor dings and about 12,000 hours between police reported accidents. We’ll be watching to see how they do.

Electrek : Ørsted’s largest solar farm in the world is now online in Texas

Ørsted’s largest solar farm in the world is now online in Texas

The Mockingbird Solar Center, Ørsted’s largest solar project globally, is now online, next to protected prairie donated by the renewable energy giant.

This massive 468-megawatt (MW) solar farm is set to power 80,000 homes and businesses, providing a major boost to the Texas grid.

But the launch of Mockingbird Solar isn’t just about clean energy – it’s also about restoring precious ecosystems. Ørsted has donated 953 acres of the Smiley-Woodfin Native Prairie Grassland, which sits next to the solar center, to The Nature Conservancy. The donated land is now the Smiley Meadow Preserve, a protected area for tallgrass prairie that’s home to more than 400 species of grasses and wildflowers.

Tallgrass prairies are some of the rarest ecosystems in the US, with less than 1% of Texas’ original tallgrass prairies still in existence. Tallgrass prairie does a lot of heavy lifting for the environment, including storing carbon, preventing floods, and providing crucial habitats for pollinators.

“Native prairies are the rarest landscapes left in Texas – so much so that many people have never seen one,” said David Bezanson, land protection strategy program director for The Nature Conservancy in Texas. He added that preserving Smiley Meadow will not only conserve one of the best prairie remnants left but also help restore other prairie habitats and boost regional biodiversity.

The Mockingbird Solar Center, a half-billion-dollar project, is part of Ørsted’s $20 billion push to expand renewable energy production across the US. Beyond generating electricity, it will inject $75 million into local property taxes, benefiting schools and other public services. The project also created over 550 construction jobs and will continue to be supported by operations staff moving forward.

Ørsted worked with US companies, including First Solar, for solar panels and partnered with local businesses like Drake Construction and Pfifer Farms for construction materials. It also gave more than $50,000 to local volunteer fire departments in Roxton and Brookston.

With Mockingbird Solar now up and running, Ørsted has more than 6 gigawatts of onshore wind, solar, and battery storage projects either in operation or being built across the US.

L'Informé : La guerre secrète qui oppose Rachida Dati à Xavier Niel

La guerre secrète qui oppose Rachida Dati à Xavier Niel
A Paris, la ministre de la Culture cherche à bloquer la création du futur musée Giacometti financé par le fondateur de Free. Insultes, accusations de favoritisme… leurs relations sont à couteaux tirés.

L’homme qui marche n’est pas encore arrivé au bout de sa route. Les héritiers du célèbre auteur de cette sculpture filiforme, Alberto Giacometti, se trouvent pris dans un conflit opposant la ministre de la Culture, Rachida Dati, au fondateur de Free, Xavier Niel (actionnaire de l’Informé). Dans le cadre du programme de la mairie de Paris, Réinventer Paris 2, la Fondation Giacometti souhaite créer un musée consacré à l’artiste dans un lieu bien connu de la capitale. Il s’agit de l’ancienne gare des Invalides et précédent siège de la compagnie Air France, dans le 7ème arrondissement de Paris. Un projet de taille qui prévoit divers autres aménagements sur plus 6 000 mètres carrés en surface et en sous-sol, dont la création d’un café, de restaurants, d’une librairie, d’un concept-store, ou encore de salles de projection et d’exposition. Pour porter le tout, la municipalité a déjà retenu les promoteurs Emerige et Nexity… mais surtout la société NJJ Project Five de Xavier Niel. Grand argentier de ce chantier d’une centaine de millions d’euros, il en est devenu l’incarnation.

Mais voilà, depuis quelques mois, le projet rencontre l’opposition d’une adversaire de taille : Rachida Dati, maire du 7ème arrondissement. Selon nos informations, en avril dernier, l’entourage de l’élue a même adressé un signalement à la Procureure de la République contre la Ville de Paris, évoquant une potentielle prise illégale d’intérêt et un éventuel délit de favoritisme au bénéfice du milliardaire. Une seconde missive de relance a été transmise courant juin.

Pourquoi une telle mobilisation de la ministre ? Deux versions s’opposent. Dans le camp Dati, on assure que le problème vient des évolutions du projet. Dans sa mouture actuelle, il prévoit 1 130 mètres carrés pour des activités commerciales et de restauration : une surélévation de 2,5 mètres du bâtiment permettra aussi la création d’un espace panoramique de 335 mètres carrés à « forte valeur commerciale ». Sans compter la création de quatre trémies afin de permettre la circulation d’air au sein de la sous-dalle.  « Au départ, il s’agissait d’installer un espace dédié aux métiers d’art avec des zones d’exposition, des ateliers de démonstration, une pépinière destinée aux jeunes talents…, explique Jean Laussucq, conseiller de Paris et député de la 2e circonscription, un proche de Rachida Dati. Et aujourd’hui, la nature du projet et son porteur, avec l’arrivée de Xavier Niel et la création du musée Giacometti, ont changé avec une rentabilité commerciale qui se fera au détriment des activités non lucratives. »

Une enquête du Nouvel Obs aurait allumé la mêche
En face, le son de cloche est bien différent.  « Rachida Dati cherche à bloquer le projet en faisant croire qu’il y a un souci avec les architectes des bâtiments de France, explique-t-on à la mairie de Paris. En réalité, tous les voyants sont au vert et les demandes de l’Etat ont été intégrées ». La Ville indique d’ailleurs ne pas être au courant du signalement qui n’aurait pas prospéré jusqu’ici. « La ministre mène, tout simplement, une vendetta contre Niel mais aussi contre la municipalité », assure un proche du dossier. À écouter les opposants à l’édile, celle-ci chercherait à se venger d’un article paru le 14 mars, peu avant l’envoi du premier signalement au procureur de Paris, dans le Nouvel Obs, un magazine dont Xavier Niel était alors actionnaire*. Dans cette enquête titrée « L’affaire Dati, nos révélations », l’auteur dévoilait des rémunérations touchées par l’avocate durant son mandat de député européenne alors qu’il est interdit de réaliser des missions de lobby. Les éléments avancés concernent non seulement l’affaire Renault Nissan, pour laquelle elle est déjà mise en examen notamment pour corruption passive, mais aussi un autre client, Alpha One, qui entretient des liens avec l’industrie de l’énergie (GDF Suez, Total et la compagnie pétrolière d’Azerbaïdjan, Socar). Interrogée, la société des rédacteurs du magazine affirme n’avoir reçu aucune pression avant parution de cette enquête. Toutefois, lors d’une assemblée générale du 6 novembre, la rédaction a appris qu’au dernier conseil de surveillance de l’hebdo, Niel avait expliqué « on ne m’a jamais autant engueulé pour des papiers de l’Obs, ce qui est un bon signe de votre travail ».

Et ce n’est pas tout. Durant Choose France, événement organisé à Versailles par l’Elysée sur les investissements étrangers en France, le milliardaire se serait fait copieusement insulter par la ministre présente ce 13 mai, devant plusieurs témoins. Des relations tendues que l’homme d’affaires a évoquées à demi-mots dans son livre écrit avec Jean-Louis Missika, Une sacré envie de foutre le bordel (Éditions Flammarion). Au chapitre 7, on peut lire : « Tiens, récemment y a même une ministre qui m’a insulté par SMS. Elle voulait que j’empêche la publication d’un papier à charge contre elle. Je lui ai expliqué que ce n’est pas exactement comme ça que ça fonctionne. Alors elle m’a insulté. » Et d’ajouter : « Attends, elle ne s’est pas arrêtée là ! Elle a aussi utilisé ses pouvoirs de ministre pour bloquer un projet philanthropique que j’essayais de monter ». En l’occurrence, le musée Giacometti.

Une version formellement contestée par Jean Laussucq, qui assure avoir commencé à se mobiliser contre le projet dès 2023, bien avant la couverture du Nouvel Obs de mars dernier.

Pour l’heure, le chantier continue. Dès le 19 janvier, celui-ci avait déjà reçu l’accord de la Commission de la nature des paysages et des sites. Par la suite, les architectes des bâtiments de France - les fameux ABF - ont bien validé le projet, précise la Direction régionale des affaires culturelles (DRAC) d’Ile-de-France auprès de l’Informé. « Ce dossier a été accepté et purgé de tous recours, il n’appelle pas d’observation particulière », conclut la même Direction. Selon nos informations, le permis de construire, délivré au début de l’été, n’aurait même fait pour sa part l’objet d’aucun recours… Les travaux vont débuter d’ici quelques semaines pour une ouverture désormais prévue début 2028.

Contactés, Emerige, Nexity, NJJ Project Five de Xavier Niel, la Fondation Giacometti et les différents cabinets d’architectes liés au consortium n’ont pas répondu à nos sollicitations.



Google Translation
The secret war between Rachida Dati and Xavier Niel
In Paris, the Minister of Culture is trying to block the creation of the future Giacometti museum financed by the founder of Free. Insults, accusations of favoritism... their relationship is at daggers drawn.

The walking man has not yet reached the end of his road. The heirs of the famous author of this filiform sculpture, Alberto Giacometti, find themselves caught up in a conflict between the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, and the founder of Free, Xavier Niel (shareholder of l'Informé). As part of the Paris city hall's program, Réinventer Paris 2, the Giacometti Foundation wants to create a museum dedicated to the artist in a well-known place in the capital. This is the former Invalides train station and former headquarters of the Air France company, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. A major project that includes various other developments over 6,000 square meters above and below ground, including the creation of a café, restaurants, a bookstore, a concept store, and even screening and exhibition rooms. To carry it all out, the municipality has already selected the developers Emerige and Nexity… but especially Xavier Niel’s company NJJ Project Five. As the treasurer of this project worth around a hundred million euros, he has become its embodiment.

But now, for several months, the project has been facing opposition from a major adversary: ​​Rachida Dati, mayor of the 7th arrondissement. According to our information, last April, the elected official’s entourage even sent a report to the Public Prosecutor against the City of Paris, alleging a potential illegal taking of interest and a possible offense of favoritism for the benefit of the billionaire. A second reminder letter was sent in June.

Why such a mobilization by the minister? There are two opposing versions. In the Dati camp, it is maintained that the problem comes from the developments of the project. In its current version, it provides for 1,130 square meters for commercial and catering activities: a 2.5 meter elevation of the building will also allow the creation of a panoramic space of 335 square meters with "high commercial value". Not to mention the creation of four hoppers to allow air circulation within the sub-slab. "Initially, it was about installing a space dedicated to crafts with exhibition areas, demonstration workshops, a nursery for young talents, etc.," explains Jean Laussucq, Paris councilor and deputy for the 2nd constituency, a close friend of Rachida Dati. And today, the nature of the project and its leader, with the arrival of Xavier Niel and the creation of the Giacometti museum, have changed with commercial profitability that will be to the detriment of non-profit activities. »

A Nouvel Obs investigation would have lit the fuse
On the other side, the tone is very different. "Rachida Dati is trying to block the project by making people believe that there is a problem with the architects of the buildings of France, they explain at the Paris city hall. In reality, all the lights are green and the State's requests have been integrated". The City also indicates that it is not aware of the report which has not prospered until now. "The minister is simply leading a vendetta against Niel but also against the municipality", assures a person close to the case. To listen to the opponents of the city councilor, she would be seeking revenge for an article published on March 14, shortly before the first report was sent to the Paris prosecutor, in the Nouvel Obs, a magazine in which Xavier Niel was then a shareholder*. In this investigation entitled “The Dati affair, our revelations”, the author revealed the remuneration received by the lawyer during her term as a Member of the European Parliament, while it is forbidden to carry out lobbying missions. The elements put forward concern not only the Renault Nissan affair, for which she is already under investigation, notably for passive corruption, but also another client, Alpha One, which has links with the energy industry (GDF Suez, Total and the Azerbaijani oil company, Socar). When questioned, the magazine’s editorial team claimed not to have received any pressure before the publication of this investigation. However, during a general meeting on 6 November, the editorial team learned that at the weekly’s last supervisory board meeting, Niel had explained “I have never been told off so much for articles from l’Obs, which is a good sign of your work”.

And that's not all. During Choose France, an event organized in Versailles by the Elysée on foreign investments in France, the billionaire was allegedly copiously insulted by the minister present on May 13, in front of several witnesses. Strained relations that the businessman mentioned in half-words in his book written with Jean-Louis Missika, Une sacré envie de foutre le bordel (Éditions Flammarion). In chapter 7, we can read: "Look, recently there was even a minister who insulted me by text message. She wanted me to prevent the publication of a paper accusing her. I explained to her that that's not exactly how it works. So she insulted me." And he added: "Wait, she didn't stop there! She also used her powers as minister to block a philanthropic project that I was trying to set up." In this case, the Giacometti Museum. A version formally contested by Jean Laussucq, who claims to have started to mobilize against the project in 2023, well before the cover of the Nouvel Obs last March.

For the time being, the work continues. As of January 19, it had already received the approval of the Commission for the Nature of Landscapes and Sites. Subsequently, the architects of the buildings of France - the famous ABF - have indeed validated the project, specifies the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs (DRAC) of Ile-de-France to l'Informé. "This file has been accepted and purged of all appeals, it does not call for any particular observation", concludes the same Directorate. According to our information, the building permit, issued at the beginning of the summer, has not even been the subject of any appeal... Work will begin in a few weeks for an opening now planned for early 2028.

Contacted, Emerige, Nexity, Xavier Niel's NJJ Project Five, the Giacometti Foundation and the various architectural firms linked to the consortium did not respond to our requests.

L'Informé : Vous pouvez partager un article en cliquant sur les icônes de partag

L’intense pressing de Decathlon sur Intersport
L’enseigne de la famille Mulliez accuse son concurrent de violer la réglementation pour des opérations commerciales et des ouvertures de magasins le dimanche. Elle multiplie les procès… avec un succès mitigé.

La concurrence est plus vive que jamais dans la distribution d’articles de sport. Avec l’absorption récente de 68 magasins Go Sport, Intersport entend bien talonner le leader, Decathlon. L’enseigne coopérative vise 4 milliards d’euros de chiffre d’affaires en 2024, plus si loin des 4,75 milliards réalisés l’an dernier par le distributeur de la famille Mulliez.

De façon plus discrète, ce duel se retrouve aussi devant la justice. Et là, c’est Decathlon qui mène l’attaque. Depuis un an et demi, pas moins de quatorze procédures différentes ont donné lieu à des décisions de tribunaux de commerce ou de juridictions d’appel, selon le recensement de l’Informé. À chaque fois, l’enseigne nordiste reproche à son concurrent des pratiques commerciales illicites. Un activisme que les avocats d’Intersport ne se sont pas privés de tacler à plusieurs reprises.  « La société Decathlon France perdant des parts de marché depuis 2018 a engagé une guerre judiciaire à l’encontre du réseau Intersport en multipliant les procédures », ont-ils affirmé aux juges. Comme sur le terrain commercial, le combat à la barre est serré. Pas de KO à l’horizon : le leader du secteur mène aux points, mais de peu.

Son principal cheval de bataille ? La contestation des ouvertures dominicales. Elles constituent l’essentiel des procédures recensées par L’Informé. Une petite dizaine de magasins Intersport de la moitié nord de la France, poursuivis chacun à titre individuel, sont concernés. Decathlon les accuse d’ouvrir le dimanche bien plus souvent que les arrêtés municipaux ne le permettent.

En première ligne, les points de vente de l’homme d’affaires picard Bernard Joannin, l’un des principaux acteurs du groupement coopératif Intersport, par ailleurs président du club de foot Amiens SC. Son magasin d’Amiens, justement, aurait ouvert « à au moins 38 reprises » en dehors des autorisations du maire entre 2019 et 2023. Celui de Saint-Martin-lès-Boulogne (Pas-de-Calais), dont il est aussi propriétaire, une cinquantaine de fois. Les avocats des points de vente ont tenté de défendre une lecture de la réglementation autorisant l’ouverture tous les dimanches. En vain.

Decathlon a notamment obtenu une série de quatre décisions favorables de la cour d’appel d’Amiens le 10 octobre et trois autres de la cour d’appel de Douai le 12 septembre. Les magasins visés sont soumis à des astreintes de 30 000 à 50 000 € pour chaque nouvelle ouverture illicite. Un pourvoi en cassation reste toutefois possible.

Autre front ouvert par Decathlon : la contestation des opérations du type vente en liquidation. La loi autorise ces dernières pour écouler des stocks dans des circonstances particulières (notamment à perte), comme avant un déménagement ou une fermeture pour travaux. L’enseigne nordiste suspecte certains Intersport d’en profiter pour écluser les marchandises d’autres points de vente de la région.

Pour le prouver, elle dépêche régulièrement des huissiers lors de ces opérations. Et les deux groupes s’écharpent ensuite au tribunal sur la validité des constats. Ces dernières semaines, ceux réalisés en 2020 dans le magasin Intersport de Fayet Saint-Quentin (Aisne) ont été définitivement annulés par la cour de cassation, tandis que d’autres diligentés en juin 2022 dans le point de vente de Saint-Dizier ont été validés par la cour d’appel de Dijon.

Cette année, la chaîne des Mulliez a aussi tenté un dernier type d’attaque… qui lui a valu un sévère désaveu de la part du tribunal de commerce d’Évry. Accusant son concurrent de mener des promotions trompeuses, Decathlon réclamait 900 000 € de dommages et intérêts. Dans son viseur : des offres affichant des prix réduits, sur intersport.fr, pour des vélos électriques de la marque maison, Nakamura. Selon Decathlon, les promotions s’étaient enchaînées sans discontinuer pendant six mois fin 2021-début 2022, sans que jamais le prix indiqué comme prix de référence soit pratiqué. L’enseigne reprochait aussi l’emploi de mentions trompeuses comme « quantités limitées » ou « déstockage massif ». Mais le tribunal n’a pas suivi : il « ne décèle pas dans [ces] pratiques marketing une action suffisamment significative pour modifier sensiblement le comportement du consommateur en le trompant délibérément » sur la réalité de la promotion. Selon nos informations, Decathlon a fait appel.

Contactées, ni Intersport ni Decathon n’ont souhaité commenter nos informations.