As planned, New Balance will be opening its first stores on the Iberian Peninsula since January’s closing of all 22 of its stores there, Palco23 reports. The first two for Spain will be in Las Rosas Village in Madrid and La Roca Village in Barcelona. Outlets will follow at Rambla Catalunya in Barcelona and at The Style Outlets de Getafe and San Sebastián de los Reyes in Madrid. There will also be two Portuguese stores at Lisbon’s Freeport Fashion Outlet, and Oporto’s Vila do Conde Fashion Outlet.
As we reported at the time, the mass closing resulted from a legal dispute between New Balance’s Spanish subsidiary and its former retail partner, Experience. The subsidiary canceled its decade-old contract with Experience over an alleged debt of €6 million. According to Palco23, Experience has in turn alleged that New Balance had been imposing artificial restrictions on order deliveries for months. The contract was set to expire in 2021 but had been extended to 2025.
