Boat engine supplier sued

Thursday, Nov. 16, 2000 | 11:36 a.m.

Two marine engine makers sued to stop Royal Marine Supply Inc. of Boulder City and its owner, James Rea, from wrongly representing themselves as authorized distributors of the plaintiffs' products.

In a Clark County District Court lawsuit, Sierra International Inc. and Aqua Power, which sell marine engines to retail dealers in Southern Nevada, Utah and Arizona, are seeking an order to force the defendants to disclose the identities of all their customers in order to inform them of possible future product recalls for "performance or safety reasons."

The suit alleged the defendants wrongly placed Royal Marine's name, phone and fax numbers and logos on Sierra's catalogs and price lists.

The suit said the defendants then stole their business by allegedly telling customers that they are out of stock of the plaintiffs' products and allegedly filling orders with products made by another manufacturer, for whom Royal Marine is a distributor.

Rea denied the allegations. "We've not represented ourselves as an authorized Sierra and Aqua Power distributor. We've informed our customers that we're buying Sierra and Aqua Power parts from other distributors and reselling them."