If they’re the sole US distributor doesn’t that mean they’re the only ones allowed to sell them in the US?
Sole distributorship means your company is the only one in a particular territory that the *manufacturer* will sell to directly - usually in exchange for KPIs around marketing, distribution and maybe service in addition to sales.
Anyone else can buy it in an outside territory - for example from another distributor or even from the manufacturer itself (strange things are known to happen when people's incentives are tied to sales targets) and sell it in your territory. While this is often called "grey channel" or "parallel imports", this is perfectly legal if the importer pays customs duty etc and invariably seems to happen if there is significant price differentiation between territories.
The way to combat grey channel is to price right across territories in a way that it's not worth anyone's while to do parallel imports.
As a consumer you may have some rights even with gray market, but it's not like a US court is going to be able to force a UK company to honor a warranty they never offered in the first place because they never sold directly into this market.
And if there is an official distributor, they suddenly need to start investigating where every customer got their widget from, because they can't afford to provide warranties on items they didn't get the original markup on
Honest question, I really don’t know
One side question: how do you manage the warranty? Presumably as the reseller you will need to handle the legal minimum warranty (how long is that in the US?) by shipping the article yourself back to the UK?
With the exception of specific types of products (cars) or situations where consumers are gravely at risk (recalls), there is no mandatory warranty in the US. Your only requirement as a reseller is to pass on any warranty from the manufacturer, and allow customers to read a written warranty before making a purchase.
It’s one of the reasons why Amazon takes such pains to make the questionable assertion that they are at arms length for every transaction. Fraudulent or grey market stuff often fails the fitness test.
The same crap used to happen with fake cameras and electronics in Manhattan. The stores would “go out of business” and reopen the next day under a new guise to avoid legal consequences. Now you just create a new merchant on Amazon.
https://www.thefashionlaw.com/resource-center/gray-market-go...
If you, dear reader, had a sole distributor agreement with an OEM would you do what you could to protect your reputation and the brand?
Which law prohibits the distributor from selling thermometers that they own?
How come an agreement between ETI and Thermoworks have any legal power over anybody else?
You can always buy the product at retail, from another country, or directly from the manufacturer (if they will sell to you) and sell the product at retail.
But this looks more like the reseller is trying to wreak havoc with lawful competition sans an agreement with Amazon. They may not look kindly on it if they see what's happening. Competition where it's not being intentionally stifled is the business model.