U.K. COMPLAINT SUMMARY

Re.  ASCDI v. Sun Microsystems UK Limited.

PARTIES:

The Association of Service and Computer Dealers International: ASCDI is a worldwide non-profit organization based in the United States.  Its membership comprises original equipment manufacturers, computer resellers, maintainers, and lessors who provide technology business solutions, technical support and value added services to the business community.  The ASCDI promotes and enforces ethical professional business practices, and provides information, services and education to its members, the technology industry and the public.

Sun Microsystems Inc.: Sun Microsystems Inc. is a global company that manufactures computer hardware and software and network storage systems and support services. Sun Microsystems UK Limited (“Sun”) is its UK subsidiary.

VENUE:

The UK competition authority, the Office of Fair Trading

CLAIMS:

ASCDI asserts that Sun’s refusal to supply provenance information infringes UK competition law. It is anti-competitive and an attempt to reserve the market for Sun products for itself.

Provenance information is necessary to determine if a given Sun product was originally released in the EEA with Sun’s consent.  By refusing to provide provenance information — which Sun exclusively controls — independent resellers are unable to determine if the equipment is freely tradable in the EU.

IMPACT OF SUN’S BEHAVIOR:

As a result of Sun’s policy not to disclose provenance information, there is diminished competition in the secondary market for Sun products.  Some independent resellers have had to make costly transitions of their businesses to other products.  Some have been left holding large inventories of Sun products that can not be sold or will sell at reduced values, and at least one reseller has gone out of business.

Customers/end-users’ market choices for Sun products are limited.  As the secondary market retracts, prices for new and used Sun equipment will rise and residual values decline.

APPLICABLE LAW:

The Chapter II prohibition of the Competition Act 1998.

REQUESTED RELIEF:

ASCDI requests the Office of Fair Trading to direct Sun to cease its infringement of UK competition law, and to provide provenance information to ASCDI members in a timely manner, without disclosure of such requests to Sun’s direct sales force and on a fee-free basis.