MavFan wrote:Again.....it is not their positions as owners that I am questioning. It is the fact that they are trying to buddy up to, and team up with, the smaller organizations, as if they, Hay and Haning, have always been part of that group. That, to me, is like a long time CEO leaving Nike to start up a new company and then teaming up with Pony and Puma and claiming Nike has all the power and is abusing power. The same power that the executive created as an employee of Nike.
If the gentleman want to fight this stupid rule change, then by all means fight it. Just don't insult people's intelligence by claiming that ASA has always ignored the other organizations now that you are no longer associated with ASA, becasue when you were part of ASA you didn't care that the other organizations were ignored.
What Spaz said, for starters.
Additionally, the so-called "smaller organizations" are not and have never been "a group" one might be "a part of," except insofar as group here means "a collection of softball organizations in loose competition with each other over ASA's scraps, none of which has ever had the sack or operational quality to challenge ASA's hegemony." PGF does not appear particularly anxious to join that group.
In any event, the point of PGF's language regarding the other organizations is not to suck up to those organizations, or even to suggest that PGF particularly cares about them or wishes them any success. Rather, the language has legal significance (i.e., "it's not just PGF that is negatively impacted by ASA's anti-competitive conduct; it's all of the other organizations and all of the players..."). This is a powerful argument, as it demonstrates that the impact on PGF is not merely happenstantial (e.g., resulting from peculiarities in the two companies' respective business models), but rather results from systematic unfair conduct affecting the entire market.*** PGF doesn't have to care one iota about any of the other market participants to raise that point in support of its legal position. In fact, antitrust and unfair competition suits are unusual in that they often find plaintiffs forcefully championing the rights of competitors they are usually trying to destroy. There is nothing hypocritical about any of this.
[*** Unfair competition laws are actually unconcerned with the "rights" of any particular business competitors. They are almost solely concerned with the rights of consumers (that is, with maximizing choice and competition in the marketplace for the consumers' benefit).]
