David RichardsTEAC is in strife again. This time the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is after the company for alleged price fixing with a Melbourne based consumer electronics retailer.
According to the ACCC in evidence lodged with the Federal Court in Melbourne, the company leaned on the management of Melbourne base retailer Panasales in Brighton in an effort to lift the perceived image of TEAC products from being a bottom end low cost product to a medium market product. To do this Panasales management was asked to not lower the price of the TEAC product range.
The ACCC claim that TEAC National Sales Manager Warren Allison said to Panasales Management “This is a new era for TEAC and we have a new philosophy for the new company”
The ACCC allege that he also said, “I want to lift the image of TEAC and bring the products up to a medium level in the market.”
Allison then offered to supply goods as long as they were not sold below the agreed price. He allegedly told Aaron Leibovich of Panasales “Advertise however you want but not less than the go price or we won’t do business with you.”
This he said applied to all retailers who did business with TEAC.
During the past few years TEAC has regularly been in the news. Gavin Muir, the former boss of TEAC was recently found dead only days before a fraud case. Muir who died at a boat show on the Gold Coast was due to face fraud charges in Melbourne last month. His world crumbled in 2005 when administrators removed him from TEAC when it was revealed it had debt of more than $130 million.