According to Digitimes, Hakuyu, the longtime distributor of Nintendo products in Taiwan has filed a civil lawsuit in Taipei court alleging illegal termination of their distribution rights by Nintendo Japan. Hakuyu are seeking damages amounting to NT$ 700m (US$ 24.3m).

The issues stem from the unilateral termination of Hakuyu as Nintendo’s Taiwan distributor this past March, and the concurrent removal of their CEO from the board of Nintendo Phuten, which is Nintendo’s branch operation in Taiwan. Due to Nintendo’s restrictive practices, which disallowed Hakuyu from distributing other competitor’s products concurrently, the loss of distribution rights equates to a disasterous loss of sales and income for the company.

Hakuyu states that they have had a long-standing relationship with Nintendo dating back 28 years. They were the first and only distributor for Nintendo for most of that time, until the addition of Acer subsidiary Weblink International in 2008. As the original Nintendo distributor in Taiwan, Hakuyu built up the sales channel for Nintendo products singlehandedly.

So how’s that for gratitude?

Source: DigiTimes