Irwin Jacobs, CEO and Chairman of J&D Acquisitions, owners and operators of Seaswirl, Fincraft, Larson and Triumph boats has filed a lawsuit against the seedealercost.com website that launched last week claiming that their information was obtained illegally for contractual and proprietary pricing. He also stated in a letter to dealers that they are investigating how the information was gained and who might be involved.
Excerpts from Jacobs letter show the intent of their action.
“As you know, a website was recently launched which includes contractual and proprietary pricing information for some of our brands. I am writing to inform you that we have initiated a lawsuit in Hennepin County, Minnesota against such site to stop this illegal behavior. These unconscionable acts have and will damage our brands and our dealers and we will not stand for it. We will pursue every legal. remedy available to us, including injunctive relief, to stop this in its tracks and recover our damages.
“Please also know that we are fully investigating how this site obtained our contractual and proprietary information. Once such source is identified you can trust that the appropriate actions will be taken to deal with these individuals. In the meantime, I cannot stress enough the importance that each of you continue to protect and not disclose to third parties any of our confidential business information. We will hold all of our employees, dealers, and sales representatives to the highest standards in this area.â€
It is unclear if manufacturers of other freshwater fishing boats are affected by the new site and whether or not they plan to take action if so. The only boats we saw listed as bass boats on the site were Sterling boats. So far no mention of Ranger, Legend, Triton, Stratos, Phoenix or Basscat.
