Do we like them?

Do we like Rolex?

Swiss maker of luxury watches (Rolex and Tudor), based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Our score: 6 out of 10. A well-made product owned by a charitable foundation. The antitrust fine and thin supply-chain disclosure keep us from a full thumbs-up.

Rolex is owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, a Swiss charitable trust. Sources say founder Hans Wilsdorf handed his stake to it. That means no outside shareholders. Jean-Frédéric Dufour, who used to run Zenith, has been CEO since 2015.

The big drama was in December 2023. France's competition authority fined Rolex about €91.6m (about $100m) after a near seven-year probe. The issue was rules that stopped authorised dealers selling new watches online. Rolex says the policy fights fakes and illegal parallel imports. A separate price-fixing complaint was dismissed.

On the green side, Rolex's own 2025 report claims over 99.9% gold waste recovery and 99.6% recycling of Oystersteel waste. That's self-reported. Good On You, an ethical-fashion rating group, calls it 'Not Good Enough' overall. It says it found no evidence of living wages in the supply chain.

We'd say it's a decent middle-to-good pick. The ownership is unusual and the product lasts. But we found little independent proof of the good it does, and the fine is a real mark against it.