Games Workshops’ $62.5 million dollar complaint against them has been dismissed, but the case may not be over yet. Come see the latest.
Back in May of 2017 Game store owner, and legal counsel David Moore has filed a criminal complaint 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 alleged 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.
He alleged that the current way that Games Workshop does business in America from limiting stores access to new releases in the numbers they may actually need, taking more and more items back to direct sales, and making other items only available exclusively hampers businesses here in the states:
- Plaintiff herein affirms all previous paragraphs 1 – 12 and all hereinafter in his Cause of Action for Restraint of Trade by GW, as if set forth again and as more fully set forth hereinafter:
- GW more and more blatantly violates Antitrust law to restrain trade of the models they job-out in China – to interfere with Store’s ability to do business freely – to Steal my sales.
- 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.
- This would be like tool supplier telling retailers 50-years ago that:“Customers can buy in your Store – but if they call you on the Telephone – then they HAVE to buy from us direct”.
GW ‘Investor Relations’ webpage betrays their criminal intent (as well as socio-pathology to ethics regarding the Great Debt they owe to the America Stores that made them:
Games Workshop followed up the complaint in September with a motion to dismiss based on their opinion that Moore failed to actually state any claims against them, and an additional jurisdictional issue.
For the foregoing reasons, the Complaint fails to state any claims and to establish jurisdiction over the Individual Defendants. It should be dismissed in its entirety.
After some additional filings by both Moore and Games Workshop, the motion to dismiss was ultimately granted on Thursday October 4th. However this case may still draw breath.
The motion to dismiss still leaves Moore a window to still pursue this complaint if he obtains legal representation for this case by October 19th.
For the foregoing reasons, it is hereby ORDERED AND ADJUDGED as follows:
1. The Motion to Dismiss [DE 15] is GRANTED.
2. Plaintiff’s Complaint is DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.
3. Plaintiff must file an amended complaint naming the corporation as plaintiff and must obtain legal representation and have a Notice of Appearance filed in the record by an attorney on or before October 19, 2017. Upon a failure of Plaintiff to fulfill both of these requirements, the Court, sua sponte, without further notice, shall dismiss and close this case.
4. Any amended complaint must also comply with this Order as to the Complaint’s failure to state a claim as set forth in Section III.B.
What does all that mean? A Source familiar with the federal legal process has told us the following about this motion to dismiss:
When courts have an option to dismiss on procedural issues they’ll typically go for that rather than sort out the actual adversarial matters. Makes for cleaner appeals process, etc, and dismissing without prejudice lets them re-file once they are fixed.
If he doesn’t get an actual lawyer to take the case and file an amended complaint by October 19th, the judge will close the case. It doesn’t mean that he can’t re-file (without prejudice) bit it does mean that if it’s closed he has to start over with serving the defendant s, etc. He could always file for an extension, bit the judge might be out of patience at this point.
Ultimately the door is still open for this case, but there is a very short window of time for this in it’s current form. You can checkout the motions for yourself over on our Legal Watch page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx__jrFealI
What do you think about this complaint overall? Checkout out coverage on the past Chapter House studios case, and be sure download the full complaint and the affidavit on our legal watch page, and judge for yourself!
About the Author: Rob Baer
Rob Baer
Job Title: Managing Editor
Founded Spikey Bits in 2009
Socials: Rob Baer on Facebook and @catdaddymbg on X
About Rob Baer: Founder, Publisher, & Managing Editor of Spikey Bits, the leading tabletop gaming news website focused on the hobby side of wargaming and miniatures.
Rob also co-founded and currently hosts the Long War Podcast, which has over 350 episodes and focuses on tabletop miniatures gaming, specializing in Warhammer 40k. and spent six years writing for Bell of Lost Souls.
Every year, along with his co-hosts, he helps host the Long War 40k Doubles Tournament at Adepticon and the Long War 40k Doubles at Las Vegas Open, which attracts over 350 players from around the world.
Rob has won many Warhammer 40k Tournaments over the years, including multiple first-place finishes in Warhammer 40k Grand Tournaments over the years and even winning 1st place at the Adepticon 40k Team Tournament.
With over 30 years of experience in retail and distribution, Rob knows all the products and exactly which ones are the best. As a member of GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association), he advocates for gaming stores and manufacturers in these difficult times, always looking for the next big thing to feature for the miniatures hobby, helping everyone to provide the value consumers want.
While he’s played every edition of Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy (since 5th Edition) and has been hobbying on miniatures since the 1980s, Titans of all sizes will always be his favorite! It’s even rumored that his hobby vault rivals the Solemnance Galleries, containing rulebooks filled with lore from editions long past, ancient packs of black-bordered Magic Cards, and models made of both pewter and resin.
