Part III of Issues Regarding the Resale Laser Market

This final blog in the resale laser market segment focuses on two related issues: Laser manufacturers’ refusal to service lasers and light based medical equipment sold on the resale market an restrictions on who may repair/service a medical aesthetic laser.

These policies and restrictions are violative of the restraint of trade provisions of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the Uniform Commercial Code. In many instances, an owner of a medical aesthetic laser or light device cannot obtain service on the device or they are able to obtain service but it is at an exorbitant price and discriminatory as indicated in the above discussion. In other instances, the owner of the device can get service, but the service technician is unable to obtain a needed part in order to repair the laser.

These policies violate the Sherman Act and/or the UCC and Robinson-Patman Act. An analogy would be that an owner of a used BMW cannot get service at a BMW dealership because they are not the original owner. Another analogy would be that a repair facility of choice cannot repair a BMW because the manufacturer will not provide the needed part for an arbitrary or less than legitimate business purpose. A third analogy would be that a BMW dealership has different parts or service pricing depending upon whether you are the original owner.

In all of these analogies, the conduct would violate the spirit and intent of the respective federal laws. Laser manufacturers are violating these concepts frequently and in most instances in which an owner is unable to purchase service or parts, or may otherwise do so at pricing levels higher than original owners.

I will conclude these issues by indicating that there are legitimate times when laser manufacturers refuse service or parts and I acknowledge this. However, there are far too many instances when the state and federal laws are violated without legitimate validation.
I would also like to indicate that many of the policies of laser manufacturers violate the financing agreements by and between the owner and the funding source for the acquisition. This is especially true when the manufacturer arranged for financing.

Finally, there are many state laws that would protect owners of aesthetic medical lasers. It is not possible to discuss all of these

Part II of a Review of the Resale (Used) Laser Issues

In regard to discriminatory pricing of laser parts and service, it has been customary for laser manufacturers and their suppliers to charge substantially different pricing to owners of resale medical aesthetic laser devices and other individuals and business entities. In my experience, I have noticed that same part have a cost of $100 to an original owner of a device, and a cost of $400 or more to a device owner that is not the original owner. This is not legally supportable. There appears to be wide-spread discriminatory pricing in the resale laser market.
The issue presented here is the anti-discrimination policies under Federal law. The Robinson-Patman Act of 1936 amended prior legislation to prohibit certain anti discriminatory practices of large businesses relative to smaller businesses. The Robinson-Patman Act is complex legislation and there are certainly situations in which pricing variations are legitimate and legally supportable. For example, if a buyer is purchasing in bulk, it would be expected that they receive volume pricing. A wholesaler would also expect to receive better pricing. However, in my experience, the activities of many laser manufacturers in this regard are clearly violative of the spirit and intent of the Act. There is no legitimate justification for the price variance that I have observed. The amount of variance is not justifiable.
There are also situations in this issue that may also violate the Uniform Commercial Code as adopted in all 50 states. It is difficult to discuss this in this forum because each state has adopted its own version of the UCC. It is important to note that the UCC, as adopted in each state, will have protections against this behavior as well.
Also, in regard to pricing of laser parts, in many instances the laser manufacturers will not supply parts to technician at any price. I am going to discuss this tomorrow in the third blog about used (resale) lasers.