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Premium has had the pleasure of covering the Mærsk saga in Vado Ligure since late 2025.
Previously published here:
– ‘The personal cost of Mærsk’s Vado venture’ (15 Sept 2025)
– ‘AP Møller-Mærsk in Vado Ligure – a sailor’s yarn’ (2 February)
Lost lawsuit
As part of that package, and the lawsuit that Mærsk lost recently (more details here) in Genoa, several names of shippers doing business with the Danish behemoth have emerged.
End-to-end at both (corporate) ends, Mærsk and Ferrero brag about their standards, and compliance requires a slew of risks to be fairly managed to make that relationship blossom.
On all counts, it seems, both Mærsk and Italian chocolate maker Ferrero, one of the worldwide leaders in its field, are on the same page, as you may draw from what follows.
Read on
In the past couple of weeks, we reached out (twice) to both companies, asking the ‘hard’ questions.
Ferrero was contacted via Marco Brambilla, on 19 May.
We asked:
a) Can Ferrero confirm its strategic collaboration with Mærsk for logistics operations, related to Alba and Vado Gateway, as evidenced by their joint participation in the “Transport Logistic 2023” panel at the Port of Genoa, for instance? As part of that relationship, Maersk has formally signed the Ferrero Supplier Code, which requires compliance with human rights and social practices.
b) The Genoa Labor Court ruled, in a ruling dated 21 April 2026, that the dismissal of a Mærsk Italia employee [Premium contributor Andrea Gozzi‘s wife] was unlawful as part of a reorganisation related to the introduction of AI. This incident was reported by Il Secolo XIX, the same [Italian] newspaper that cited Ferrero as a strategic Mærsk customer and partner in the use of Vado Gateway. How does this square with [Executive President] Giovanni Ferrero’s public statements, which just ten days later stated that “AI must be confined to performance enhancement, not to replacing humans” and that “authorities must legislate, otherwise it will be too late”? Does Ferrero’s supplier due diligence also cover incidents of this kind?
c) Mærsk is periodically at the centre of activist campaigns challenging its alleged involvement in the transport of military equipment to Israel and its logistical support for the occupation of Palestinian territories. The company’s official position distinguishes between “arms and ammunition” and “military-related cargo,” a distinction activists consider ambiguous, and Mærsk has never provided concrete evidence of actually carrying out checks on shipments. Has Ferrero ever discussed the company’s true position on these issues directly with its supplier?
Radio silence
Brambilla, who according to LinkedIn is head of corporate communication at Ferrero Italia, didn’t reply.
And so, thinking he may have retired or, God forbid, passed away (this is a genuine problem when using LinkedIn for new contacts), we sent the same questions to the official media channel on 22 May, and three days after reaching out to Brambilla we received an automated reply, which translated in English read:
“We will respond to emails strictly related to press office operations, such as requests from journalists and/or digital communicators.”
We belong to neither category, apparently.
(Oh, by the way: looks like Brambilla is alive judging by his recent interaction on social media, unless his account was hacked.)
Then
Mindful of the treatment we received from Ferrero, we duly reached out to Mærsk as if we were two junior reporters – twice, in the past week. The questions were similarly straightforward (too hard to answer?!?), as follow:
a) With regard to the article published in Il Secolo XIX by Francesco Margiocco, and to the English translation available here – can Mærsk confirm whether it has formally adopted or committed to the supplier codes of conduct of Ferrero (and Italian manufacturer of coffee products Lavazza)?
b) In relation to the same article: is it considered standard within Mærsk’s management practices that a line manager may lack awareness of an employee’s completed training activities and time dedicated to professional development? Similarly, is it consistent with Maersk’s HR policies that an HR Business Partner may not be fully informed of an employee’s professional background and career progression?
c) Referring to points raised in the article and subsequent coverage in Italian media: can Mærsk confirm or deny whether the dismissal later ruled unlawful was in any way linked to the use of AI-driven processes, potentially influenced by regulatory frameworks more permissive in certain other jurisdictions compared to the EU?
d) In connection with the issues discussed in the article regarding the Vado Gateway terminal concession: were there employment-related commitments made with public institutions that have not been fulfilled? Furthermore, can Mærsk clarify whether Ms. Rachele Izzo declined an official meeting with the Genoa City Councillor for Labour in order to avoid addressing concerns about possible inconsistencies between such commitments and alleged extra-EU delocalization?
e) Finally, with reference to reports mentioned in relation to the same matter: can Mærsk confirm or deny whether Ms. Rachele Izzo, together with other Vado Gateway managers, attended a private meeting with representatives of the Liguria Region on the same morning as the scheduled municipal meeting?
Mikkel Elbek Linnet, deputy head of media relations at Mærsk, replied, politely saying he was “sorry for a late answer, (…) some busy days recently, we will kindly decline to comment”.
The key lesson?
Every time you buy a golden Ferrero Rocher Star or – more pertinently, a Nutella jar, given the logistics (Alba and Vado, exported from there in Liguria) – remember what you are signing up to. And, maybe, just ask yourself the ever-recurring question that really matters for the consumer with regard to supply chain matters: ‘What did my last slave die of?‘
(Andrea Gozzi contributed to this post.)
Comment on this article
Andrea Gozzi
June 03, 2026 at 4:19 pmThe issue starts at the top. In his introduction to Maersk’s own Employee Code of Conduct, Clerc writes that compliance with the law “goes without saying” — he takes it for granted. In a compliance document, this is a troubling statement. A serious compliance system takes nothing for granted: it monitors, verifies, and reacts. Treating legal compliance as a given is not a position of confidence. It is the absence of control dressed up as certainty.
Any Maersk customer enters a commercial relationship with a company that presents itself as ethically sound, backed by a Code covering labour rights, supply chain due diligence, and transparent engagement with public authorities. The Code itself states that Maersk commits to acting in a “consistent, respectful and upright” manner with governments and institutions. When the Genoa City Council summoned Maersk over the unlawful dismissal of a Maersk Italia employee, the institutional response was to look the other way. Customers cannot directly audit a global supplier’s internal practices. They rely on the code that supplier has publicly committed to. When that code is set aside the moment it becomes uncomfortable, the trust it was meant to underpin has no foundation.
At the March 2025 AGM, Clerc reassured shareholders on military cargo by pointing to the absence of a submitted transport plan under the Maritime Security Program. This is a procedural argument that only holds if robust monitoring exists to confirm that procedures were not bypassed. He also declined shareholder requests for additional human rights due diligence disclosures, seeing no need for transparency beyond the minimum CSDDD obligations. Add Maersk’s refusal to respond to straightforward press questions about the Genoa case and the Ferrero partnership, and a pattern emerges: a company that avoids scrutiny precisely where its self-proclaimed standards are most under strain.
An enterprise that chooses not to look cannot then ask stakeholders to trust its self-certifications. The Code of Conduct, the supplier commitments, the AGM assurances: these only carry weight if the organisation demonstrates that when compliance signals surface, the system reacts. Until Maersk provides facts and evidence rather than procedure references and silence, its ethical commitments remain a statement of aspiration, not governance.