for the celtic mythological land see lyonesse . lyoness type private industry shopping community multi level marketing founded 2003 founders iwan j. ackermann max meienberg uwe proch headquarters graz austria key people hubert freidl revenue 1.2 billion euros 1 number of employees 980 employees 5 300 000 members 2 website www.lyoness.com since 2003 lyoness has been the registered trademark name for a group of globally distributed mostly privately owned limited liability corporate structures which originated in austria . 3 lyoness comprises at least 7 corporations registered in switzerland 4 9 corporations registered in austria 5 and approximately 42 additional national and regional corporations all around the globe . 3 the name lyoness was derived from the celtic mythological kingdom lyonesse . 6 lyconet has been introduced in 2014 as a new trademark name for the same group of corporations . the main corporation then called lyoness holding europe ag was registered in 2003 by iwan j. ackermann max meienberg and uwe proch . 7 in 2004 the publicly known ceo of lyoness hubert freidl was hired by this corporation as a director . 7 lyoness in its entirety has an estimated annual turnover of 1.2 billions euros 2012 . 1 the shopping community has a self proclaimed member of more than 5 million as of july 2016 . 2 lyoness is currently active in more than 40 countries spread over 6 continents . 3 contents 1 business model 1.1 shopping community 1.2 cashback and shopping points 1.3 friendship bonus 2 corporate structure 2.1 international organisation 2.2 continental and country organisation 2.3 cooperations 3 social involvement 4 controversy 4.1 legality 4.2 television 4.3 income 4.4 internet 5 references 6 external links business model edit shopping community edit lyoness operates an international cross sectoral shopping community from which members and merchants presumably benefit through cashback discounts and customer loyalty respectively . 8 lyoness announced that starting july 2014 all network marketing activities are to be bundled under the new brand lyconet . 9 the lyoness shopping community currently has as of july 2014 an estimated 4 million members around the globe receiving discounts while shopping at 29 000 lyoness partners with over 150 000 points of acceptance . 10 through the discounts systems lyoness members receive direct discounts of 1 5 % in the form of cash back on every purchase made at a lyoness partner . 11 depending on the country the sum of the obtained discounts needs to be 5 or 10 euros or higher in order for it to be transferred to the bank account of the lyoness member . 12 cashback and shopping points edit cashback and shopping points are member benefits that are generated when purchasing at a lyoness loyalty merchant . the benefits are depending on the merchant s conditions . shopping points can be used for shopping point deals which could be described as vouchers . lyoness will transfer the earned cashback to the bank account registered by the member . 13 friendship bonus edit next to discounts over personal purchases lyoness members receive an 0.5 % commission over the purchases made by the people they have introduced to lyoness as well as 0.5 % over the purchases made by the people introduced by the people they have brought in . 11 lyoness refers to this system as the friendship bonus . 11 corporate structure edit international organisation edit the lyoness and lyconet trademark names cover various corporate structures . the overarching holding corporation is named lyoness international ag which is supported by several administrative departments which are registered corporate structures including lyoness ebiz gmbh lyoness dataservice gmbh lyoness lyco soft gmbh lyoness child & family foundation lyoness greenfinity foundation . 3 continental and country organisation edit the continental organisations are subsidiaries of lyoness international ag and are registered as stock corporations . these are lyoness europe ag founded in 2003 lyoness imea s.a. 2009 lyoness north america ltd. lyoness south america s.a. lyoness asia ltd. 2011 . 3 the country offices are subsidiaries of the continental stock corporations and are registered as privately owned limited liability companies . 3 cooperations edit sk rapid cashback card lyoness has initiated cashback cooperations with the austrian football club sk rapid wien 14 15 the austrian golf association 16 17 the slovak ice hockey club hc slovan bratislava 18 and the czech football club sk slavia praha . 19 social involvement edit according to lyoness every purchase made by its members at its partner companies benefits the lyoness child and family foundation a lyoness owned charity organisation 20 and the lyoness greenfinity foundation a lyoness owned organisation promoting sustainability . 21 lyoness together with its greenfinity foundation is the main sponsor of the annual austrian open golf tournament now named the lyoness open . 22 this tournament is part of the 2013 european tour . 23 lyoness is also involved in the world of soccer sponsoring the european juniors league a european football competition for youth teams 24 as well as austrian club sk rapid wien . 25 lyoness will pay 9 million euros over the coming 5 soccer seasons but will not be the main sponsor of rapid wien . 26 controversy edit one year after lyoness was founded in 2004 the austrian criminal police kriminalpolizei published an article 27 in the december issue of its organisation s magazine in which it warned for the resurfacing of ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes in austria . lyoness was explicitly mentioned in this article . lyoness contested the allegations publicly . 28 in 2005 austrian parliament member johann maier sp asked the then incumbent austrian minister of justice karin miklautsch bz parliamentary questions about the reports filed against alleged pyramid schemes in austria in 2004 . 29 lyoness was one of the organisations complaints were filed against . 29 in 2008 the austrian chamber of labour arbeiterkammer of steiermark issued a warning against lyoness listing its alleged privacy violations misleading advertising deceptive information and unrealistic and negligible benefits as red flags for doing business with lyoness . 30 in march 2010 the swiss medium beobachter published an article 31 by pascale hofmeier entitled lyoness hands off . in the article sara stalder of the swiss consumer union and manuel richard of the swiss gambling commission warn consumers not to do business with lyoness . in the beginning of 2012 kleine zeitung published an article 32 suggesting that lyoness has deceived the masses by operating an irrelevant shopping community . l hebdo a swiss medium reproduced a story about how lyoness members are told that an investment of 3 000 chf will eventually lead to 25 000 chf in return if enough new down paying members are recruited . 33 in february 2012 the beobachter published an article 34 stating that based on consideration of internal lyoness communication members are offered bounties up to 45 000 chf to provide relevant information on lyoness critics . a critic from zurich was reported to have been sued for over 1 million chf for defamation after he contacted lyoness partner companies in switzerland in an attempt to explain the business model of lyoness to them . the article also reported that the lyoness business model seems to revolve around recruiting activities instead of discounts and that lyoness is internationally charged with forgery fraud and hosting a pyramid scheme . der standard reported in july 2012 that the austrian economic and corruption prosecutor wksta has been granted jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute lyoness in austria . 35 the swiss handelszeitung mentioned a court case lyoness lost which revolved around the question as to whether lyoness should have issued a financial prospectus before asking investors to finance their foreign markets advertising campaigns . 36 in september 2012 the same newspaper reported 37 that major alleged lyoness partners in switzerland microsoft and kuoni travel were announcing not to continue the partnerships if there were any to begin with . the wiener zeitung reported 38 about a pending lawsuit initiated by the austrian consumer organisation vki in march 2013 . the vki contests 61 clauses of lyoness general terms and conditions which it called opaque uncertain and or meaningless . 38 39 40 eric breiteneder hired as a legal representative by the organisation also referred to the concepts used to distinguish various parts of and benefits within the lyoness business model as vague and or undefined elsewhere . 41 42 the handelszeitung reported about suspicions that high level lyoness members were earlier involved in other pyramid schemes like the spirit of independence . 43 it also mentioned a system called gts global trade system operated by erin trade sa as a former organisation tied to hubert freidl . 43 like lyoness this company has been called a pyramid scheme in the public debate . 43 the kleine zeitung reported that various experts were looking at the investment schemes for advertising campaigns organised by lyoness and whether a prospectus was required before attracting capital from investors . 39 lyoness hired 44 professor susanne kalls concluded that no capital market regulations were violated by not issuing a prospectus ; attorney karl hengstberger came to the opposite conclusion 39 but agreed with professor susanne kalls that the lyoness business package does not constitute an investment . 39 in the same article mathias vorbach spokesman of lyoness admits that lyoness may have had some trouble before but that those days are behind us lyoness has learned from its mistakes . 39 he asserts the message that legal problems have only appeared in austria a contested claim and that 95 % of the lyoness members just shop and do not participate in the earning models offered by lyoness . 39 however the beobachter after reportedly considering internal lyoness documents published an article 45 suggesting that 99.7 % of the lyoness turnover derives from down payments on future purchases not from actual shopping or saved up discounts . in september 2009 lyoness hired criminal law expert professor peter lewisch to assess whether the company s business model violated the austrian law concerning illegal pyramid schemes . 46 the study conducted by lewisch in september 2013 argued that lyoness is not a pyramid scheme under austrian legislation . 46 the judges of the regional court in krems 47 austria however concluded that the business model of lyoness is so ponzi scheme like that contracts between lyoness and its business partners are not valid . 48 also lyoness has been declared a pyramid scheme by at least four independent civil courts in austria . 49 also it was reported that the austrian consumers union has filed suit against lyoness for providing participants with unclear and deceptive terms and conditions . 38 vki is representing clients who contend they invested money in the advertising campaigns organised by lyoness and several option trading packages offered by lyoness but were not provided with a prospectus . vki won their case against lyoness and the court ruled that the 61 contested clauses are indeed unlawful making the contracts between lyoness and its premium members not legally binding under austrian law . 50 51 further civil proceedings are combined into a class action lawsuit worth millions euros initiated by process financier advofin and supported and recommended by the austrian consumer union vki . 52 53 the lawsuit will be filed in amsterdam . 54 55 lyoness is suspected to be a pyramid scheme in several of the countries it operates in . in homeland austria lyoness has been declared a pyramid scheme by four independent civil courts . 49 criminal investigations have also been concluded by the austrian economic and corruption prosecutor wksta who maintains that lyoness operates an illegal pyramid scheme . 56 57 lyoness expects to be cleared of all charges . 58 in australia lyoness was under prosecution by the accc for operating an illegal pyramid scheme . 59 60 the trial has ended and the judgment was reserved . 61 62 in sweden the responsible authority