Deal reached in Amtec case
Vendor and reseller come to an agreement after court meeting
Independent reseller Amtec Computer Corporation has reached an agreement with Sun that the vendor will check the origin of future stock at its request, following their recent grey market court battle.
Under the terms of the agreement, if Sun does not respond to Amtec’s query within 10 days then Amtec is free to sell the product without breaking the agreement’s terms.
In a statement to CRN, Sun said: “[Amtec] would, however, still be liable to pay damages to Sun should that product be later identified as having been unlawfully imported.”
Warren Ayrton, managing director of Amtec, told CRN that the agreement with Sun would include both new and refurbished kit.
He added that Amtec had become unwittingly caught up in the grey market chain which involved the sale of servers originating from Israel.
“We didn’t import the goods; someone else imported them from Israel originally. We were innocently caught-up in the sales chain. We now have a mechanism in place, the majority of which is with Sun, which will ensure this [situation] does not happen [again],” Ayrton said.
According to court documents obtained by CRN: “The servers were supplied to Amtec by Kimbrer Systems, a Danish intermediary which in turn had been supplied by Caledonian Technology Ltd in the UK.”
Andy Griffith, business development director at VAR QAssociates, added: “I’d welcome anything that Sun does to help protect resellers and end-users from unsupported kit.”
However, an anonymous source said this agreement could have repercussions on Sun’s future control over the grey market.
“Very possibly Sun is trying to make an example of Amtec. It appears that any reseller that has suspicions over the origins of their kit can now go to Sun and ask for legitimacy.”