Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have been found guilty of tax evasion.

The verdict was announced this afternoon after hours of deliberation by a three-judge panel who decided to uphold last June’s guilty verdict that saw each designer sentenced to 20-months in prison for allegedly committing tax evasion. The alleged offence is said to have occured as a result of the sale of their Dolce & Gabbana and D&G brands to the Luxembourg-based holding company Gado Srl in 2004.

The duo have always strongly denied the charges and promptly appealed last year’s decision with their legal representative,  Massino Dinoia, saying:  “Those issues that concern the image of the fashion house and the creation of products, while all that pertains to the commercial phase, such as the organisation and the administration of the company structures, concern other offices and individuals.”

“I am speechless and astounded, this sentence is inexplicable,”  Massimo Dinoia, Dolce and Gabbana’s lawyer, said immediately after the hearing. “After all, the general prosecutor already realised that there was really nothing to the case. We will surely present our appeal to the Corte di Cassazione. This is an unfair verdict and we are sure the Cassazione will reform it.”

According to Italian law, however, none of the defendants will have to serve jail time as their sentences are below the two-year minimum in Italy.

A twist in the appeal process came in March when the state general prosecutor, Gaetano Santamaria, requested that all defendants in the case be acquitted, saying at the time that “the case is groundless”.