Hewlett Packard Enterprise awarded £1.95m in ‘grey’ case

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has been awarded £1.95 million by the High Court in a successful claim against Matthew Archer and his company International Computer Purchasing Limited.

The case brought was for “fraud, conspiracy and inducement of breach of contract” following a trial heard at the end of April 2016.

The case centred on an “abuse” of HPE’s partner programmes and discounts, with the defendants “fraudulently obtaining” over £1.5 million in discounts on HPE products, HPE successfully claimed.

Commenting on the High Court decision, Marc Waters, interim managing director of UK&I for HPE, said: “HPE is satisfied with this verdict. Grey marketing is a serious problem for the industry in terms of lost sales, margin erosion, poor customer experiences and reputational damage.”

He said: “HPE has a well-established grey market avoidance programme and the outcome of this case clearly demonstrates that we will not hesitate to take court action to enforce our rights if required.

“We would also encourage anyone concerned about potential fraudulent activity to contact our brand protection team and we will investigate as appropriate.”

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Antony Savvas

York, UK-based Antony Savvas has been a technology journalist for 25 years and has expertise in all major areas of enterprise and consumer IT. He has worked for a number of leading technology magazines and websites and his work is syndicated across the internet. He also undertakes corporate work for some of the world's leading technology companies.