Dyson loses fight for $198M compensation over EU energy labelling rules | Hacker News Reader

Dyson loses fight for $198M compensation over EU energy labelling rules

reuters.com

44 pointsmatthewmorgan38 comments

It’s a dirty industry (snort!) Howling, germ bellowing airblades are a personal dislike of mine. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/25/hand-dryers-...

I never understood the appeal of Dyson products.

I understood them back when my parents bought a Dyson bagless vacuum back in the early 2000s (iirc). It was high tech, powerful (I still remember them showing me how much more dust and dog hair it pulled out of the carpet), and advertised no loss of suction.

Unfortunately it did lose suction over time, and was eventually replaced by an absolutely ancient Kirby vac (the kind that were sold by door to door salesmen god knows how long ago), which is built like a tank and still works perfectly well today. Probably the sort of thing I'd put in the "buy it for life" category.

I still kind of put Dyson in that early 2000s category of products - both for aesthetic and general attitude reasons. It has that energy of "it's the year 2000, so stuff is now HIGH TECH", but often times the older, less flashy stuff is still better.

I’m not a Dyson apologist, but when ours started losing suction cleaning an easily accessible air filter cartridge fixed the problem.

They used to make the only bagless vacuum cleaners that worked well, it is not really the case anymore, probably due to patents expiring, but they still the big name brand.

And their bladeless fans, while not really better at moving air than regular fans, they are certainly stylish.

I personally think that they make overpriced items and are not worth it anymore, but I understand the appeal.

Marketing. Good (looking) design. Money for patents and more marketing.

I had one at some time in my life, it was OK but not life changing to cost 10x what a normal regular vacuum would cost.

It's just like any luxury item mostly flexing and status signaling through purchasing stuff, or so it seems to me

Other than the original vacuum cleaners and the airblade every other product they released are gimmicky. The brand got praise inside UK because its the success story of a local inventor and the company for a long time kept every aspect of their work in-house promoting local prosperity, not sure if it's still the case. Other than that nowadays they are mostly an expensive brand due to prior recognition and they try to be apple like without really delivering something special.

The bathroom hand drier they invented is/was cool. No heat and knocking the water off with a faster jet of air by pushing it through a smaller hole was a decent improvement.

I prefer a simple paper towel dispenser or if you want to be more sustainable one with a reusable cloth towel "ribbon". But yeah the Dyson driers are better than the heated blowers.

Paper towels for me everytime.

But their blowers are not just better at drying hands than a standard blower - they are also better at spreading nastiness from people who don’t wash thoroughly. https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/dyson-dryers-hurl-60...

I remember seeing studies showing how unhealthy it is because germs are spread in the air when using it. I assume this is the case with competition too and not Dyson specific.

Does anyone have any precise details to help affirm or deny Dyson’s claims?

This similar to another case where Dyson was arguing that some standard for performance verification are unfair to their product (https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/dyson-dryers-hurl-60... )

They usually use as reference their own test methodology, which is overall a bit pointless. Either make it a standard, or adhere to one.

No but he peddled brexit and then moved production to singapore... You might default to not trusting a guy who does that...

and then was given a ventilator contract, with fanfare, at the start of the pandemic when there was a shortage, (whilst the government wasn't answering the phone from actual ventilator manufacturers) then they couldn't deliver.

I will never by a dyson product.

I have a DC-62 vacuum cleaner and its a hell to empty. Batteries are short-lived and expensive.

Their hand dryers are perfect microbe an virus spreading tools, apparently.

Their kind of "airco" ventilators do not cool the air.

So yes, Dyson is a failed brand.

I don't know about their cordless stuff but aren't their corded vacuums considered the best? We got a one of their orange "ball" vacuums in 2009 as a wedding gift, it's been used 300+ days per year for the past 12 years. I had change out the power switch in 2019 -- it was only $9 on Amazon + a 15 minute procedure I learned from a YouTube video. When this thing eventually dies I'm pretty sure I'm buying another one.

> I don't know about their cordless stuff but aren't their corded vacuums considered the best?

Not really. They're not bad, but they're very expensive. You can get something comparable (Shark) for cheaper, or something better (Miele) for the same money.

And Dyson has said that they're not making any new corded vacuums, they're focusing on cordless now.

How is it hard to empty? The bottom just flips open. And there are lots of battery options- 3rd party ones aren't expensive.

Flipping it open and clapping it back is takes quite some effort. Because of that some trash falls outside the bin.

I don't think this is entirely fair. Separating the man from the brand, the products are pretty good. My dyson vacuum is excellent, even with a dog. My wife has the hairdryer which she loves.

He did advocate for Brexit and then move production offshore though. So take the rough with the smooth.

Agreed. I remember reading his autobiography back in 2005 or so, and thinking what a weird self-centred individual he was. I certainly don't agree with his politics.

However, I think there's no doubt that Dyson make great vacuum cleaners.

He's a bit strange, from my eyes anyway. He's done some great things for UK innovation and product design. Politics aside, we shouldn't detract from that.

But my wife can dry her hair in less than 20 minutes, and it's quiet. Well worth the money!

Even before that, as reported in the news in 2011 he stealthily built a swimming pool in the basement of his listed mansion without planning permission.

He obviously knew what he was doing and it worked since, although he was later caught, he managed to escape prosecution and was granted retrospective permission... I'm not sure authorities would have been that understanding with everyone.

I didn't know that Dyson actually peddled Brexit. That is a massive disappointment on such a brilliant person. (I'd love to read more if you have references)

It's all out in the open, he pushed for Brexit[0] citing British competetivity ... and then moved production out of Britain to Singapore.

Got any references for 'briliant person'‽

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dyson#Pro-Brexit

given his experience with EU energy labelling laws his position really isn't that unreasonable

(essentially the laws were bought and paid for by his competitors)

and they were annulled: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/201...

Well, so he claims. Is that actually true? But regardless; even if he had reason to dislike certain regulators - that makes for a really poor reason to argue to remove yourself from the equation when it comes to influence over those regulations. If anything, if indeed the rule-making process was corrupt, that argues against Brexit, not for it (from the perspective of business primarily involved in selling goods affected by those regulations).

In fact, it sounds like those regulations hurt his competitors at least as much as Dyson: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/21/anger-as-eu-ba... - "Dyson vacuum cleaners score highly in the ratings. However, the manufacturer has many concerns about flaws in the system that will ultimately be unhelpful for consumers."

Notably, Dyson "won" in that review; it only lost the case for hundreds of millions in damages.

> that makes for a really poor reason to argue to remove yourself from the equation when it comes to influence over those regulations.

here's a few Dyson subsidiaries:

   - Dyson BV (Dutch)
   - Dyson Austria GmbH
   - Dyson GmbH (German)
   - Dyson Finland Oy
   - Dyson Ireland Ltd
   - Dyson SAS (France)
   - Dyson Spain SLU
   - Dyson Sweden AB
   - Dyson sp zoo Poland

it's a large multinational, not some micro-enterprise, brexit has little to no impact on his ability to "influence" regulations

Of course it does - as a well known British business, it'll get the kind of attention and care from its home turf it won't elsewhere in the form of some small subsidiary. And the guy isn't exactly known for being timid or restrained; he's tried to litigate his grievances in via the press repeatedly - and that's going to be less effective moving forward. Even if he gets a hearing in the continental press (which I kind of doubt, because why would the public care?), he and his business are likely to be defined by his brexiteer stance - not exactly a great way to sway opinion his way. (And just to be sure to undermine his British support, he decided to move to Singapore too... I guess that's his own little Brexit?)

Most other sane business tried to stay away from this whole minefield at least in public, and that sure looks like the better call in retrospect.

the EU is not China

those subsidiaries are EU companies: they have the same right to market access and to be treated in the same way under EU law as those of Bosch or Miele

and they're capable of suing if they're treated differently

the fact the CEO of the parent company thinks the EU is shit doesn't change this

Politics isn't some formulistic emotionless process; having access to supportive media, which in turn influence public opinion and pressure politicians, who in turn are not entirely free from bias and have agency to pick and choose which priorities they will address most quickly - that kind of stuff matters. Companies try to have great PR even when it doesn't directly influence sales because of this. Additionally, companies spend quite a bit on lobbying. Influence matters, and being a home-grown darling is likely to grant much more of it than being a fairly faceless corporation that's likely not remembered much (and if it is, remembered for negative things).

Regulations are never perfect - and Dyson's own cases clearly show that. But being able to nudge their evolution such that flaws don't hurt you specifically too much is valuable, even if it's not any kind of enforceable right.

Also, while I have a great deal of respect for the value of the EU, no organization is entirely free from regulatory capture (or effects like it). That's not some kind of anti-EU rant; I'm entirely willing to accept that the EU is probably on the healthier end of the spectrum here. But just because they're no worse than others doesn't mean lobbying isn't a thing.

> essentially the laws were bought and paid for by his competitors

Citation Needed.

It was widely reported in the press at the time a quick Google will provide a lot of results.

Why Singapore out of all places? It seems a very expensive place to start a manufacturing company.

They're mostly not manufactured in Singapore. They're designed in Singapore (formerly the UK), manufactured mostly in Malaysia and the Philipines (where labour is cheaper, [1]) and I presume the shift is entirely for tax reasons – in contrast to the UK it has far lower corporate taxation rates, and relevantly for Dyson himself, no capital gains tax at all [2] unlike the UK, which I presume will dramatically improve his income. The fact that they'll be in / closer to the same timezone as the manufacturing base probably helps as well.

[1] https://www.quora.com/Where-and-how-are-Dyson-vacuums-made?s... [2] https://ebos-sg.com/singapore-is-a-tax-haven/

The court apparently agreed that the standard was flawed - it scrapped the standard! The court simply held the commission did not "manifestly and gravely disregard the limits [...]" to the point where dyson deserves hundreds of millions in compensation.

i.e. to the extent that Dyson lost, it's revolving not around the energy efficiency bit itself (it won that part), but rather the claims that it lost hundreds of millions due to these rules and that the rules were so egregious it deserves compensation for that loss.

IIRC:

Dyson said that the tests weren't representative of real use, and that if they used a vacuum cleaner all the way from empty to full, Dyson's would score much better. A court agreed that the tests weren't good and ordered improvement. Dyson then asked for financial compensation. A court said the tests weren't bad enough to warrant any compensation.

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