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So I know in the US companies are generally bound by a maximum of 15% I believe on sale price for GW products. I was riding a Guardian article about how some music companies are being fined/brought to court for price fixing for doing exactly what it sounds like GW does in the US with its products. I don't know much about the UK laws or law rulings in generally, but does UK laws apply when a company does business in another country?

Territorial integrity is part of the local sovereign.
Ergo if you do buissness in another country you need to meet their standards.

So no, the 15% if lawfull in the states do not apply to the UK laws. Because the buissness is done in the US.

Does that help?

mightymconeshot wrote:
So I know in the US companies are generally bound by a maximum of 15% I believe on sale price for GW products. I was riding a Guardian article about how some music companies are being fined/brought to court for price fixing for doing exactly what it sounds like GW does in the US with its products. I don't know much about the UK laws or law rulings in generally, but does UK laws apply when a company does business in another country?

I may be missing the point but is the 15% not the limit on promotional discount or trade discount a retailer may sell at, which is a US law and hence why UK re-sellers can offer 25%? Not my area of expertise but that was my understanding of it.

mightymconeshot wrote:
So I know in the US companies are generally bound by a maximum of 15% I believe on sale price for GW products. I was riding a Guardian article about how some music companies are being fined/brought to court for price fixing for doing exactly what it sounds like GW does in the US with its products. I don't know much about the UK laws or law rulings in generally, but does UK laws apply when a company does business in another country?

Yes, they are. This is to protect brick and mortar retailers from online retailers, IIRC. GW gets the same amount either way no matter how much the end retailer sells it for, so this is a measure that is almost exclusively good for the FLGS's, so I have a hard time opposing it.

I think part of the problem is the OP has a fundemental misunderstanding what price fixing is.

An actual case of price fixing would be a bunch of petrol companies agreeing to all sell at $15 per liter. Consumers are left with no alternative because all the erstwhile competitors are colluding on the price.

GW setting what the minimum discount resellers can offer is in now way related to price fixing.

 Bookwrack wrote:
I think part of the problem is the OP has a fundemental misunderstanding what price fixing is.

An actual case of price fixing would be a bunch of petrol companies agreeing to all sell at $15 per liter. Consumers are left with no alternative because all the erstwhile competitors are colluding on the price.

GW setting what the minimum discount resellers can offer is in now way related to price fixing.

This. Price fixing is when companies collude to fix prices, squashing competition. GW is a single company and can fix the retail price of their goods if they wish - this has no effect on the competition.

The airlines are a better example of price-fixing, etc.

In short, to be price fixing you need multiple competitors collaborating behimd the scenes to control a market. One company setting their trade terms for how they want it is... Normal business. If a buyer finds themselves choking on beimg limited to 15% MSRP there are myriad other game systems they could buy from other companies instead.

It's also important to note that GW can't enforce the 15% max discount. anybody that owns a product can sell it for whatever price they wish. The only leverage that GW has is that it can cancel the commercial account for that seller, because GW can freely stop selling at wholesale to anybody.

Likewise, they can stop selling to distributors who do not enforce the maximum discount.

Okay. Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering because it said Fender required minimum sale prices on its guitars which was called Illegal and made it difficult for customers to find deals on their products because every store had the same bottom price which sounded exactly like what GW does.

mightymconeshot wrote:
Okay. Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering because it said Fender required minimum sale prices on its guitars which was called Illegal and made it difficult for customers to find deals on their products because every store had the same bottom price which sounded exactly like what GW does.

There is no such law in the USA, but even if there was it wouldn't matter b.c GW will not sell their product to you anymore, they "suggest" dont sell below X amount, and if you do, they wont take you to court or anything, they just wont sell it at wholesale price to you anymore.

EDIT: Fender was with other companies it seems.

A simple Google search showed that it was fender, along with four other companies, as part of a joint investigation into price fixing.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/27/guitar-maker-fender-four-japanese-musical-instrument-manufacturers/

mightymconeshot wrote:
Okay. Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering because it said Fender required minimum sale prices on its guitars which was called Illegal and made it difficult for customers to find deals on their products because every store had the same bottom price which sounded exactly like what GW does.

I haven't seen the article but my guess is that fender's minimum sale price led to other companies also setting minimum sales prices that stifled price competition. So collusion with extra steps, which would be different than what GW does.

mightymconeshot wrote:
Okay. Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering because it said Fender required minimum sale prices on its guitars which was called Illegal and made it difficult for customers to find deals on their products because every store had the same bottom price which sounded exactly like what GW does.

The part you were missing was it was '-Fender and 4 other companies-.'