Lager 175 is a discount chain that sells clothing. The founder of the company is Stefan Palm via the parent company ettfemsju AB. The chain currently has 54 stores in Sweden and a total of 81 stores.
Now the store chain has been hit with a hefty fine after a big miss.
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Refused to answer questions
Norwegian school students asked Lager 157 to answer questions about, among other things, pay and working conditions for the employees who manufacture the clothes and how the chain viewed the environment linked to the factory production of the clothes for a school assignment.
Lager 157 refused to answer the questions, which has resulted in Gällstad-based fashion company Lager 157 having to pay NOK 450,000 in fines for violating Norway’s new transparency law, which also Ulricehamn’s newspaper rewritten.
– Warehouse 157 said they wouldn’t give us an answer, because it was a school project. We reacted to this and our teacher advised us that we could file a complaint, says another student E24.
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Breached the Norwegian Openness Act
In Norway, there is something called the “Openness Act”.
The law has been in place since 1 July 2022 and means that companies that have operations in Norway must be open about how they work in the company.
But with the law, it is hoped that customers and the state will gain more transparency, and anyone who breaks the law and refuses to be open about their business risks being fined by the Norwegian Consumer Protection Authority, which roughly corresponds to the Swedish Consumer Agency.
It is the first time a company has been fined under the new law in Norway, making the event historic.
– We do this to ensure that the business complies with the rules of the Transparency Act and to highlight that breaking the law has consequences. This is important for the law to achieve its purpose – to ensure companies’ respect for basic human rights and decent working conditions, says Bente Øverli, acting director at the Norwegian Consumer Authority, to Economy24.
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Lager 157 has appealed the decision
Lager 157 has appealed the decision to the Norwegian Market Council.
Agnes Kaczmarek, sales and operations manager at Warehouse 157, believes that the communication mistake should not be the basis for a fine and that is why an appeal was made.
“We have carried out – and are continuously carrying out – extensive work linked to sustainability and compliance with human rights at factories in our supply chain. The students sent a request to Warehouse 157, which unfortunately was not understood as a request for information. As soon as Warehouse 157 became aware that the request was an information requirement under the Openness Act, the students received a response to their request,” she wrote in an email to Ulricehamn’s newspaper.
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