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Allod, as Phantom Viper said, thank you for your insight.

It appears then that no matter how crazy GW's decisions appear to be, if a Company "truly believes" that a trading partner is passing information on to another party then that Company can impose penalties/ restrictions on that trading partner where they have already been stipulated in a contract..

 Bull0 wrote:

 Allod wrote:

 Bull0 wrote:
Or, that people don't pursue legal action when they have recourse because "it's too expensive" (I've made my feelings on that argument clear above too, by the way - I don't have any sympathy for it, basically. If anything I think to not take legal action when you have recourse is massively irresponsible and damaging, particularly if you then throw around claims like "We're being bullied").

May God preserve your naivety by never putting you in such a situation (honestly).

I see legal bullying by a massively stronger party on a weekly basis, and this is not hyperbole. I have seen people lose their flats, their financial existence and their mental health over it. I have a lot of sympathy for it, and I'm not sure whether you are cynical or just argumentative.

Oh I understand that legal proceedings are hella expensive and I have much more sympathy when it's individuals - but for businesses I see a distinction, particularly if those businesses are going to publically allude to wrongdoing on the part of the other party but not take it to court. I did say "people" rather than "businesses", I probably should've been a lot clearer there.

I don't think you understand, the amount of money is not cut back on spending money it is bankruptcy money for a company the size of wayland for anything but an open and shut case. For BOW it would undoubtly be throw everything away to make a point situation.

PhantomViper wrote:
Now, I understand that secrecy rules in contracts are pretty much the norm and perfectly legal, I work in a field where this type of NDA is allot more important than just "Toy Soldiers", what I fail to understand is how you can equate GW making sure that Wayland doesn't divulge their products before release (perfectly logical and legal), to GW saying that Wayland is responsible for a third party divulging said products before time? How is the behaviour of a third party relevant to a contract between party A and B?

Didn't their "affiliation" include sharing staff between the two companies?
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
I don't think you understand, the amount of money is not cut back on spending money it is bankruptcy money for a company the size of wayland for anything but an open and shut case. For BOW it would undoubtly be throw everything away to make a point situation.

I understand perfectly, but personally I'm utterly self-destructive when it comes to my principles, and I'm not good at appreciating that not everyone is as crazy as I am.

PhantomViper wrote:

First, I wan't to thank you for taking the time to reply so: thank you very much.

Now, I understand that secrecy rules in contracts are pretty much the norm and perfectly legal, I work in a field where this type of NDA is allot more important than just "Toy Soldiers", what I fail to understand is how you can equate GW making sure that Wayland doesn't divulge their products before release (perfectly logical and legal), to GW saying that Wayland is responsible for a third party divulging said products before time? How is the behaviour of a third party relevant to a contract between party A and B?

You're welcome!

GW says that Wayland is responsible for the action of this particular third party because GW claims that BoW is a subsidiary of Wayland, probably in terms of control rather than ownership. As I understand it, BoW used Wayland's office space and infrastructure, which is sufficient grounds to base such a claim on.

The relevant clause in GW's European Trade Terms is

"9.4 If any Affiliates of the Trade Account disseminate or otherwise make available to the public any information in respect of new release Products prior to any Advance Order Date in respect of such Products, then, for a period of 6 months, GW shall not despatch new release Products to that Trade Account until 30 days following the Global Release Date for such Products."

alphaecho wrote:

It appears then that no matter how crazy GW's decisions appear to be, if a Company "truly believes" that a trading partner is passing information on to another party then that Company can impose penalties/ restrictions on that trading partner where they have already been stipulated in a contract..

Yes, that's basically how it works. Evidence suffices as proof will often be impossible to obtain.

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
Same document. That is why the context matters, who said what and why. Taking one sides version as gospel is unwise. My quote is from page 8 and is part of the chapterhouse submission.

Side note didn't anyone ever tell them not to start sentences with "And".

All I was doing was showing GWs submission and what they stated in regards to what they finally claimed for. Also Chapterhouse could be, but not necessarily, be mistaken about the hundreds of thousands of dollars. They might have had the impression that GW were looking for that amount whereas GW were only claiming that the amount stated was the amount made in sales in items they were trying to claim for. Remember that legal issues are normally to be resolved between the two parties in deliberation.

EDIT: I have removed some parts and trimmed the post as recommended.

 dragqueeninspace wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:

 DarthOvious wrote:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:

You need to read the question more carefully. You told me where it was written I asked who said it, if you look closely you will find that text is from the GW legal teams statement on how the Judge should interpret the juries decision. Context in these things is very important.

Edit. The quote is from the "joint status for entry of judgment" document.

Its from GWs statement in the main court document. However it was cited because some people claimed that GW was going for a suit of $400,000. This shows that GWs claim isn;'t that they were shuing for $400,000 but merely presented the profits that Chapterhouse made. Its still a necessary quote to make.

Edit: Sorry the $400,000 isn't a claim on profit. It is a claim on sales.

Made by GW council in a document concerned heavily with convincing a judge to declare a $25k award as a victory written after the verdict was in. Gw council want to make it look like they got a good award relative to what they asked for.

What I am getting at is that people were saying that GW wanted $400,000 but only got £25,000. The court documents clearly show that $25,000 is what GW requested at the end of the case and thats why they only got $25,000. Yes, this was influenced by the outcome of the case but I wanted to point out that nowhere in this case that GW was denied an award of $400,000. It was an award they claimed for after all facts of the case had been delivered on both sides.

This is why the context matters, had it been a statement by the judge at the start of the trial it would be a lot less dubious.

There is nothing dubious about it. In their statement they made a claim to the court that the $400,000 were what they considered the sales from Chapterhouse.

A much better thing to quote would be the text from the original complaint although I expect it will be understandably vague. After all if you were to ask for 100% of the profits and the plaintiff claims they broke even you would get nothing(I assume). In the UK many small businesses report zero earnings for tax purposes using any leftover money as reinvestment or owner salaries.

Its understandably vague because of course you're going to change your claim for damages depending on the outcome of the case. There is nothing dubious about this.

At
trial, Chapterhouse won on the majority of claims. And although the jury awarded $25,000 to
Games Workshop, that was a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of dollars Games Workshop
had initially sought. Far from showing it prevailed, the fact that Games Workshop was forced to
make a demand for that small amount after years of litigation confirms it did not prevail.

Same document. That is why the context matters, who said what and why. Taking one sides version as gospel is unwise. My quote is from page 8 and is part of the chapterhouse submission.

Side note didn't anyone ever tell them not to start sentences with "And".

All I was doing was showing GWs submission and what they stated in regards to what they finally claimed for. Also Chapterhouse could be, but not necessarily, be mistaken about the hundreds of thousands of dollars. They might have had the impression that GW were looking for that amount whereas GW were only claiming that the amount stated was the amount made in sales in items they were trying to claim for. Remember that legal issues are normally to be resolved between the two parties in deliberation.

You have messed up the quotes I didn't write that.

You posted a section of text and presented it as evidence to dispute somone elses assertion without citing the source correctly or disclosing that it was from a highly biased source. The way you presented it implied it was a statement by the court it is not. What you wrote has in the same document a contary statement by a simialrly biased party. I am not making claims about which is true I am saying you presented it in a misleading manner.

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
You have messed up the quotes I didn't write that.

Yeah, sorry I just say that. I'm not sure whats happening.

You posted a section of text and presented it as evidence to dispute somone elses assertion without citing the source correctly or disclosing that it was from a highly biased source. The way you presented it implied it was a statement by the court it is not. What you wrote has in the same document a contary statement by a simialrly biased party. I am not making claims about which is true I am saying you presented it in a misleading manner.

If I did I didn't mean to. I will only apologise if I didn't make myself clear on the matter. The claim that was made about GW looking for hundreds of thousands of dollars came from the the Chapterhouse statement. I just wantted to show that this was denied.

EDIT: I have trimmed the post down as it was getting complicated.

 Bull0 wrote:

Oh I understand that legal proceedings are hella expensive and I have much more sympathy when it's individuals - but for businesses I see a distinction, particularly if those businesses are going to publically allude to wrongdoing on the part of the other party but not take it to court. I did say "people" rather than "businesses", I probably should've been a lot clearer there.

Being in business doesn't suddenly mean having access to large amounts of cash.

Beasts of war's monthly turnover (that is turnover, not profit) would likely pay for less than a days worth of the sort of legal team they would require to get into this fight with Games Workshop.

NoggintheNog wrote:

 Bull0 wrote:

Oh I understand that legal proceedings are hella expensive and I have much more sympathy when it's individuals - but for businesses I see a distinction, particularly if those businesses are going to publically allude to wrongdoing on the part of the other party but not take it to court. I did say "people" rather than "businesses", I probably should've been a lot clearer there.

Being in business doesn't suddenly mean having access to large amounts of cash.

Beasts of war's monthly turnover (that is turnover, not profit) would likely pay for less than a days worth of the sort of legal team they would require to get into this fight with Games Workshop.

 Bull0 wrote:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:
I don't think you understand, the amount of money is not cut back on spending money it is bankruptcy money for a company the size of wayland for anything but an open and shut case. For BOW it would undoubtly be throw everything away to make a point situation.

I understand perfectly, but personally I'm utterly self-destructive when it comes to my principles, and I'm not good at appreciating that not everyone is as crazy as I am.

Sorry, the quote tags in my last two messages are all jumbled up and I don't know how to fix them. I haven't got the time to fix them just now either as I am just going. I will try to fix them later on.

 Allod wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

First, I wan't to thank you for taking the time to reply so: thank you very much.

Now, I understand that secrecy rules in contracts are pretty much the norm and perfectly legal, I work in a field where this type of NDA is allot more important than just "Toy Soldiers", what I fail to understand is how you can equate GW making sure that Wayland doesn't divulge their products before release (perfectly logical and legal), to GW saying that Wayland is responsible for a third party divulging said products before time? How is the behaviour of a third party relevant to a contract between party A and B?

You're welcome!

GW says that Wayland is responsible for the action of this particular third party because GW claims that BoW is a subsidiary of Wayland, probably in terms of control rather than ownership. As I understand it, BoW used Wayland's office space and infrastructure, which is sufficient grounds to base such a claim on.

The relevant clause in GW's European Trade Terms is

"9.4 If any Affiliates of the Trade Account disseminate or otherwise make available to the public any information in respect of new release Products prior to any Advance Order Date in respect of such Products, then, for a period of 6 months, GW shall not despatch new release Products to that Trade Account until 30 days following the Global Release Date for such Products."

Ok, I can see how GW can make that claim.

I still don't agree with that and think that Wayland and BoW could take the matter to court, but I'm not a lawyer and I am a known GW hater to booth!

Once again I would like to thank you for your time and expertise in explaining this to us.

 DarthOvious wrote:

 dragqueeninspace wrote:

You have messed up the quotes I didn't write that.

Yeah, sorry I just say that. I'm not sure whats happening.

You posted a section of text and presented it as evidence to dispute somone elses assertion without citing the source correctly or disclosing that it was from a highly biased source. The way you presented it implied it was a statement by the court it is not. What you wrote has in the same document a contary statement by a simialrly biased party. I am not making claims about which is true I am saying you presented it in a misleading manner.

If I did I didn't mean to. I will only apologise if I didn't make myself clear on the matter. The claim that was made about GW looking for hundreds of thousands of dollars came from the the Chapterhouse statement. I just wantted to show that this was denied.

^^^^^
Don't re-quote thirteen hundred posts. In a thread where the last quote (and the one before, and before that) are probably only a few posts above, it's unnecessary and it screws up, as it has there. Trim manually and just leave the last post and it's less likely to happen.

PhantomViper wrote:


I still don't agree with that and think that Wayland and BoW could take the matter to court, but I'm not a lawyer and I am a known GW hater to booth!

Once again I would like to thank you for your time and expertise in explaining this to us.

GW doesn't have to take it to court, they just exercise the clause of their trade agreement which basically shuts the retailer down from being able to sell GW products easily and depending on the impact of the % of sales of the business, the 6 months of punishment could drive them under.

It would be upon Wayland to take GW to court to claim the trade agreement is unfair, illegal or should be reversed. That is hard to prove, and a huge financial burden, and GW can then choose to not allow a trade agreement, so a lawsuit is the equivalent of 'no more GW sales'.

It puts retailers in a 'no-win' solution which results in them bending to GW's will or totally stopping sale of GW products.

nkelsch wrote:


GW doesn't have to take it to court, they just exercise the clause of their trade agreement which basically shuts the retailer down from being able to sell GW products easily and depending on the impact of the % of sales of the business, the 6 months of punishment could drive them under.

It would be upon Wayland to take GW to court to claim the trade agreement is unfair, illegal or should be reversed. That is hard to prove, and a huge financial burden, and GW can then choose to not allow a trade agreement, so a lawsuit is the equivalent of 'no more GW sales'.

It puts retailers in a 'no-win' solution which results in them bending to GW's will or totally stopping sale of GW products.

And even if BoW/Wayland won a case on that basis, GW still has the right to sell to whomever they wish. Ok, for the duration of the 'current' trade agreement GW would presumably have to supply Wayland, but all it would take would be for GW to either wait for the end of term (of the current agreement/contract) and refuse to offer a new one to Wayland, or possibly to come up with a 'substantial' change which would require all retailers to sign a new agreement and refuse to send Wayland one.

All of a sudden Wayland has no more access to GW product except through a third party. This would drive up the cost of stocking GW product for Wayland, or remove it from their inventory completely. I also wouldn't put it past GW to then alter the terms again so as to place any retailer supplying Wayland under increased strain.

As GW is historically the 'go-to' company for table top gaming, much larger than the companies responsible for "Infinity" and the other games mentioned here, then it is reasonable to presume that independant companies such as Wayland rely on a 50%+ turnover of GW product. It is up to them to decide if they can survive without that turnover and associated profit.

I suspect that, with GW's recent behaviour towards their independant stockists, as soon as each one has reached the point where dropping GW from their supplier list is feasible, they will do so. It's certainly what I would do, but only they can decide whether it's feasible for them or not as they need to consider more than just turnover and profit. Customer reaction, shelf space, and much more need to be taken into account.

 Conrad Turner wrote:

nkelsch wrote:


GW doesn't have to take it to court, they just exercise the clause of their trade agreement which basically shuts the retailer down from being able to sell GW products easily and depending on the impact of the % of sales of the business, the 6 months of punishment could drive them under.

It would be upon Wayland to take GW to court to claim the trade agreement is unfair, illegal or should be reversed. That is hard to prove, and a huge financial burden, and GW can then choose to not allow a trade agreement, so a lawsuit is the equivalent of 'no more GW sales'.

It puts retailers in a 'no-win' solution which results in them bending to GW's will or totally stopping sale of GW products.

And even if BoW/Wayland won a case on that basis, GW still has the right to sell to whomever they wish. Ok, for the duration of the 'current' trade agreement GW would presumably have to supply Wayland, but all it would take would be for GW to either wait for the end of term (of the current agreement/contract) and refuse to offer a new one to Wayland, or possibly to come up with a 'substantial' change which would require all retailers to sign a new agreement and refuse to send Wayland one.

All of a sudden Wayland has no more access to GW product except through a third party. This would drive up the cost of stocking GW product for Wayland, or remove it from their inventory completely. I also wouldn't put it past GW to then alter the terms again so as to place any retailer supplying Wayland under increased strain.

As GW is historically the 'go-to' company for table top gaming, much larger than the companies responsible for "Infinity" and the other games mentioned here, then it is reasonable to presume that independant companies such as Wayland rely on a 50%+ turnover of GW product. It is up to them to decide if they can survive without that turnover and associated profit.

I suspect that, with GW's recent behaviour towards their independant stockists, as soon as each one has reached the point where dropping GW from their supplier list is feasible, they will do so. It's certainly what I would do, but only they can decide whether it's feasible for them or not as they need to consider more than just turnover and profit. Customer reaction, shelf space, and much more need to be taken into account.

GW cannot refuse to deal with WG unless they do something wrong so waiting till the end of the trade deal would make no difference. It's been awhile since I studied but if I remember correctly the only way GW can refuse to supply someone who meets there criteria, is to do a forge world and not supply anyone including there own stores. Which is obviously not something there going to do as it would virtually be suicide unless they made other substantial changes.

 Azazelx wrote:

^^^^^
Don't re-quote thirteen hundred posts. In a thread where the last quote (and the one before, and before that) are probably only a few posts above, it's unnecessary and it screws up, as it has there. Trim manually and just leave the last post and it's less likely to happen.

I have done as you have recommended. I was hesitant to do it at first because I didn't want to make it seem like I was purposefully removing parts of the post.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SeanDrake wrote:
GW cannot refuse to deal with WG unless they do something wrong so waiting till the end of the trade deal would make no difference. It's been awhile since I studied but if I remember correctly the only way GW can refuse to supply someone who meets there criteria, is to do a forge world and not supply anyone including there own stores. Which is obviously not something there going to do as it would virtually be suicide unless they made other substantial changes.

Can I ask a question since you know a bit about this kind of thing. Are GW in any way able to just supply there own stores and drop the independent stores completely or would this be illegal?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SeanDrake wrote:
GW cannot refuse to deal with WG unless they do something wrong so waiting till the end of the trade deal would make no difference. It's been awhile since I studied but if I remember correctly the only way GW can refuse to supply someone who meets there criteria, is to do a forge world and not supply anyone including there own stores. Which is obviously not something there going to do as it would virtually be suicide unless they made other substantial changes.

Can I ask a question since you know a bit about this kind of thing. Are GW in any way able to just supply there own stores and drop the independent stores completely or would this be illegal?

SeanDrake wrote:
That would be illegal as by law they have to treat all retail outlets equally so if it's sold in a gw store they have to offer it to independents, I believe this is the reason fw stuff is no longer sold in gw stores as well.

The reason why I ask is because it shows a possible insight in how GW feel about this overall. I thought that GW weren't allowed to stop trading with the independents but I wasn't sure about that and I had seen others who said that they could stop trading with them if they really wanted to.

I'm thinking that perhaps GW don't like the indpendents at all because they consider them to eat away at too much of their profits in some fashion. Maybe they look at the indpendents as the reason on why they had downsize some of their stores, etc, etc. I'm just citing this as a possibility, not necessarily as fact.

SeanDrake wrote:
That would be illegal as by law they have to treat all retail outlets equally so if it's sold in a gw store they have to offer it to independents, I believe this is the reason fw stuff is no longer sold in gw stores as well.

[citation needed]

SeanDrake wrote:
That would be illegal as by law they have to treat all retail outlets equally so if it's sold in a gw store they have to offer it to independents, I believe this is the reason fw stuff is no longer sold in gw stores as well.

I would be extremely surprised if that's the case.

 Baragash wrote:
I would be extremely surprised if that's the case.

From a legal sense it wouldn't make any sense to me since I consider that a company should have full rights to sell its own products but it would make sense in the way that GW deal with the independents.

They can stop supplying independent stores if they wan't to and just stick to their own stores. But they have to stop supplying all of them, they can't pick between one independent retailer or another (if they equally meet the same conditions in the trade agreement obviously).

But since GW has their own stores and supplies independent stores as well, they can't sell anything in their own stores that they don't sell to independent stores, hence why you don't have FW or Online Only items for sale in GW stores.

That being said, you have to realise that outside the UK, GW has a very minute number of stores and that the vast majority of their sales comes from independent retailers (60+% from what I've read).

I'd be really surprised if freedom of contract was completely abolished in the UK.

In all the European countries I have experience with, national competition law uses the concept of market power to determine how free you are in your choice of contract partners. If you are operating out of your garage, you can discriminate against retailers as much as you want, if you are Coca-Cola, you absolutely can't.

Naturally, most businesses are somewhere in between these two extremes, so there is no "yes or no answer".

In Austria, Germany or Switzerland, where I am up to date on publications on the matter, the relevant questions would be

What is Wayland Games? A toy retailer, a hobby retailer, a model retailer, a LFGS?

Would customers typically expect to find GW products at that venue?

How viable is it for said venue to continue business without GW products?

How strong is GW in terms of market share? What's the relevant market anyway?

How strong are GW's brands?

The list goes on and on. The number of retailers who sued to get a certain brand of shoes, handbags, cosmetics, you name it into their store on grounds of unfair competition and lost in court are legion.

Also, please don't forget that judges are just people, too. A judge will know L'Oreal, Pfizer, Louis Vuitton and Adidas and have a suspicion about their market power. He will in all probability never have heard of Games Workshop or even tabletop wargaming, so it will take a lot of effort to convince him that GW has enough power in a market he didn't even know existed to warrant the partial suspension of basic freedoms.

It usually simply saves a lot of headache to draft terms of trade that you apply to everyone equally so you're filtering out unwanted retailers ex ante.

I might be totally wrong and in the UK it's completely different. But I doubt it.

 Allod wrote:
I'd be really surprised if freedom of contract was completely abolished in the UK.

In all the European countries I have experience with, national competition law uses the concept of market power to determine how free you are in your choice of contract partners. If you are operating out of your garage, you can discriminate against retailers as much as you want, if you are Coca-Cola, you absolutely can't.

Naturally, most businesses are somewhere in between these two extremes, so there is no "yes or no answer".

In Austria, Germany or Switzerland, where I am up to date on publications on the matter, the relevant questions would be

What is Wayland Games? A toy retailer, a hobby retailer, a model retailer, a LFGS?

Would customers typically expect to find GW products at that venue?

How viable is it for said venue to continue business without GW products?

How strong is GW in terms of market share? What's the relevant market anyway?

How strong are GW's brands?

The list goes on and on. The number of retailers who sued to get a certain brand of shoes, handbags, cosmetics, you name it into their store on grounds of unfair competition and lost in court are legion.

Also, please don't forget that judges are just people, too. A judge will know L'Oreal, Pfizer, Louis Vuitton and Adidas and have a suspicion about their market power. He will in all probability never have heard of Games Workshop or even tabletop wargaming, so it will take a lot of effort to convince him that GW has enough power in a market he didn't even know existed to warrant the partial suspension of basic freedoms.

It usually simply saves a lot of headache to draft terms of trade that you apply to everyone equally so you're filtering out unwanted retailers ex ante.

I might be totally wrong and in the UK it's completely different. But I doubt it.

Thanks for your insight. Its good to have someone with some law knowledge helping us put this all into persepctive and explain what we see going on here.

So if I come up with a tabletop wargame and want to sell it, I have to sell it to any independant that asks to be able to? I don't think so.

It's my product and I decide who to sell it to. End of!

Likewise, if you come across an item in a store, with a price of, let's say, £2.99. The store owner says that it's been mis-priced and that is the price for the medium size whilst the product is a large one.

You do not have the right to demand that the item be sold for £2.99!

Don't confuse the fact that stores often will sell it at the lower price - THEY DON'T HAVE TO SELL IT TO YOU AT ALL!

Any store has the right to say to any customer, "Sorry, I'm withdrawing that item from sale." at any point up to where you have paid for it.

So GW has the right to decide who it trades with. It does NOT have to trade with ALL the independants or NONE of them.

Chris Clayton has just sculpted an amazing bust called "Hush". If I put in an order, he can refuse to sell me one FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER providing it is not coverd by discrimination laws. IE, he can't say "I won't sell to you because of your [sex, skin colour, religion, etc.].". He CAN say, "I just don't want to sell to you.".

If I were to set up a business to sell on Chris's works as an independant, and we both signed a trade agreement that he would supply me for a period of six months, then there is no legal way I can force him to continue supplying me after that time. Whether he offers me another agreement is soley at his discretion. Whether or not he had other independant stockists, or for whatever reason - provided that it wasn't a clear case of discrimination against me personally. He could just decide that he doesn't make enough money out of the deal and refuse to renew.

I don't know the exact situation for an open-ended agreement, but I don't suppose they are that common anyway.

EDIT: Partial Ninja by Allod.

I believe Allod is referring to cutting out all independants [I may be wrong, of course]. I am talking about GW having the basic right to decide which independants it does business with.

 Conrad Turner wrote:
So if I come up with a tabletop wargame and want to sell it, I have to sell it to any independant that asks to be able to? I don't think so.

It's my product and I decide who to sell it to. End of!

Likewise, if you come across an item in a store, with a price of, let's say, £2.99. The store owner says that it's been mis-priced and that is the price for the medium size whilst the product is a large one.

You do not have the right to demand that the item be sold for £2.99!

Don't confuse the fact that stores often will sell it at the lower price - THEY DON'T HAVE TO SELL IT TO YOU AT ALL!

Any store has the right to say to any customer, "Sorry, I'm withdrawing that item from sale." at any point up to where you have paid for it.

So GW has the right to decide who it trades with. It does NOT have to trade with ALL the independants or NONE of them.

Chris Clayton has just sculpted an amazing bust called "Hush". If I put in an order, he can refuse to sell me one FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER providing it is not coverd by discrimination laws. IE, he can't say "I won't sell to you because of your [sex, skin colour, religion, etc.].". He CAN say, "I just don't want to sell to you.".

If I were to set up a business to sell on Chris's works as an independant, and we both signed a trade agreement that he would supply me for a period of six months, then there is no legal way I can force him to continue supplying me after that time. Whether he offers me another agreement is soley at his discretion. Whether or not he had other independant stockists, or for whatever reason - provided that it wasn't a clear case of discrimination against me personally. He could just decide that he doesn't make enough money out of the deal and refuse to renew.

I don't know the exact situation for an open-ended agreement, but I don't suppose they are that common anyway.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Allod.

Allod did say he doesn't have much experience in UK law and he did admit that but he does have a good knowledge of law in some European countries (i.e. Austria, Switzerland, etc) and was giving his account about what companies could do in those countries. I have to say that I don't really envision UK law to be much different in this regard considering that the EU is pushing a common standard when it comes to trade.

He stated it depends on the size of the company and how mush of the market they control. There are certain laws that stop companies with monopolies from abusing them, so this is what we are discussing at this point.

EDIT: My apologies, I thought you're reply was aimed at Allod.

PhantomViper wrote:
But since GW has their own stores and supplies independent stores as well, they can't sell anything in their own stores that they don't sell to independent stores, hence why you don't have FW or Online Only items for sale in GW stores.

[ ] So they couldn't sell the latest Eldar releases on launch day because a huge number of independants hadn't got the stuff they ordered? I must have missed that. [ / ]


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarthOvious wrote:
Allod did say he doesn't have much experience in UK law and he did admit that but he does have a good knowledge of law in some European countries (i.e. Austria, Switzerland, etc) and was giving his account about what companies could do in those countries. I have to say that I don't really envision UK law to be much different in this regard considering that the EU is pushing a common standard when it comes to trade.

He stated it depends on the size of the company and how mush of the market they control. There are certain laws that stop companies with monopolies from abusing them, so this is what we are discussing at this point.

EDIT: My apologies, I thought you're reply was aimed at Allod.

NP Darth. That's why I edited my post. I was replying to PhantomViper amongst others. Not picking out PV either, just he was the last to state that he thought they had to supply all independants or none. To stop supplying all the independants would give GW a monoply charge to answer. Not supplying WG would not. I assume if the worst came to pass, GW could just as easily hook up another independant and say "The market has not substantially changed. There are the same number of independants now as there were before." but WG would have lost out.

Conrad Turner wrote:
EDIT: Partial Ninja by Allod.

DarthOvious wrote:
EDIT: My apologies, I thought you're reply was aimed at Allod.

Conrad Turner wrote: I believe Allod is referring to cutting out all independants [I may be wrong, of course]. I am talking about GW having the basic right to decide which independants it does business with.

Ninja mayhem!

To clear this up: I said that by default, GW is allowed to reject any contract offer by any retailer, not just all of them (although this is an option). There will be restrictions depending on their amount of market power, but outside of court, nobody knows how far those would reach. Disclaimer: All this might not apply to the UK.

 Conrad Turner wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:
But since GW has their own stores and supplies independent stores as well, they can't sell anything in their own stores that they don't sell to independent stores, hence why you don't have FW or Online Only items for sale in GW stores.

[ ] So they couldn't sell the latest Eldar releases on launch day because a huge number of independants hadn't got the stuff they ordered? I must have missed that. [ / ]

There is a substantial difference between having ordered items and delays in the distribution / production preventing those items from arriving in time and not being allowed to order the items in the first place.

 Conrad Turner wrote:

NP Darth. That's why I edited my post. I was replying to PhantomViper amongst others. Not picking out PV either, just he was the last to state that he thought they had to supply all independants or none. To stop supplying all the independants would give GW a monoply charge to answer. Not supplying WG would not. I assume if the worst came to pass, GW could just as easily hook up another independant and say "The market has not substantially changed. There are the same number of independants now as there were before." but WG would have lost out.

Its all very complicated isn't it, but then legal matters always are.