"Following the announcement from the Ministry of Development regarding a fine for our company concerning "Misleading Discounts" on 22 product codes, we would like to inform about the following: On 5/12/23, our company received an inspection order from the Directorate for Market Control (DIMEA), which concerned an audit and a possible violation for 74 product codes out of a total of 37,350 codes traded by our company. Out of these, 52 were related to our company's campaign during the Black Friday 2023 period, and 22 codes participated in our company's campaign in 2021.

The company was given the minimum response deadline of five working days, while a related request for an extension was rejected.

Regarding the Black Friday campaign and the 52 prices, no violation was found.

The second part of the audit concerned a one-week campaign in January 2021, starting on 17/01/2021 and ending on 25/01/2021. The page related to this specific campaign became inactive immediately after its conclusion and was inaccessible through the Kotsovolos online store. However, it is archived as a campaign in global search engines, with zero visibility, as indicated by Google data. Similarly, there are thousands of such inactive campaigns archived in the online stores of commercial enterprises across all industries, both in Greece and globally. All the above information was provided to the auditing service.

Finally, our company was audited for its commercial decision during the Black Friday 2023 period to publish a chart showing the lowest prices of all discounted products for each month of 2023. It was referred for further examination by the General Secretariat for Commerce to determine whether this specific chart creates confusion for the consumer.

Our goal with this pricing chart was to provide the maximum transparency to the consumer to confirm that the prices of discounted items during Black Friday 2023 were the lowest for the year 2023, despite inflationary pressures and rising prices.

With the aim of protecting the reputation of our company, its 3,000 employees, and the thousands of our associates, we will take all legal measures available to us under Greek legislation."