Games Workshop is Being Sued For $62.5M - By a Retailer / Lawyer

Looks like there's some money to be squeezed out of Games Workshop - or a the very least, a valiant attempt to do so.

SpikeyBits has the details of a $62.5M lawsuit filed "in the US Federal Court of Southern Florida alleging six criminal violations of US law and is seeking $62.5 million in equitable relief from Games Workshop.

Moore alleges violations of the U.S. Law and RICO under 18 & 15 U.S. CODE, including but not limited to Fraud, Price Fixing, Tortious Interference, Breach of Contract, Unjust Enrichment, Restraint of Trade, Conspiracy and Antitrust Violations."

That's one hell of a shot across the bow.

There's a lot to the article and I'm not going to attempt to break it down, but these two paragraphs stood out to me:

For near-30-years GW has always maintained that we sellers can “Set any price we want for the items we wholesale from them (GW)”. Yet, more recently GW ‘asked’ its retailers “not to have a ‘shopping cart’ on our websites – since they were adding one to theirs”!? Soon after, without agreement from Stores – GW ‘asked’ that “advertised prices (on the internet) not be more than 20%-Off MSRP – directly contradicting their previous assurances and our extant long-held Verbal Good-Faith Contract. Later, (unknown to Plaintiff) GW said 15%-off. 

Eventually (and unknown to your Plaintiff Stores) GW ‘claimed’ to have quietly instituted a ‘policy’ to outright ‘prohibit’ any/all sales which used internet.

Go to SpikeyBits and read it for yourself. IANAL and I have no clue how this will play out. Still, interesting to see the company quick to threaten to sue over its IP being sued over its IP ;)