I remember, (some of it)
Someone bought Chinese poles didn't like Gardiners clamps and didn't want Alex's help with their quite old pole but insisted on complaining all over the forum. Someone else posted about the Chinese poles and compared prices to Gardiners (bit unfair really) then tried to order more Gardiners products to fit to their own Chinese pole and have hinted they will be importing them and selling them cheaply.
Gardiners understandably are unimpressed.
Correct me if I'm wrong but that's how I see it.
I would think that it would have something to do with the clamps. It looks like one of those Chinese manufacturers have copied the Gardiner smart clamp. Not sure what the situation is with enforcing patents in China, but anyone importing product with these copy clamps could be liable for patent enfringement in the UK. Alex said something about it a couple of weeks ago. (Sorry it wasn't Alex, it was Stephen Fox regarding Facelift copied clamps. Their legal team goes after the importers and the guilty party has to pay their legal costs. The Chinese don't give a hoot about patents but they are inforceable in countries that do. So they can't do anything about the drug manufacturers but they will go after the dealers and users further down the supply chain.)
I also think you are right regarding suppling to a competitor. If I was a supplier like Alex I would also tell them to go to hell.
I once used to drive for a local bakery delivering bread and cakes to his local outlets when the manager was on holiday. One day a local coffee shop owner came in at 4.00 in the morning and took all of our scones as the coffee shop had forgotten to place an order for them from their regular supplier the day before. The baker who was in charge while the owner was away thought that selling all the scones one time was brilliant. We had harsh words over it.
Unfortunately, our customers were the ones that were inconvenienced as the regulars didn't get any scones that day. When the owner came back from holiday the baker got a right bollocking for doing that. And rightly so. Normally that coffee shop never bought anything from this bakery unless they were in trouble.
If I found out that the extreme brush I wanted wasn't available because a competitor had bought them all would not go down well with me. I wondered if the delay with the V Lite poles had anything to do with patent infringement TBH.
May have nothing to do with this though.