QSGI, a provider of information technology products and services, announced that it filed an antitrust suit against IBM Global Financing, a division of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and IBM, parent to and/or d/b/a IBM Global Financing, in the United States District Court, Southern District on August 3, 2011.

According to QSGI’s news release, this action for damages was brought pursuant to the Florida Antitrust Act of 1980. The action claims QSGI operated in direct competition with IBM Global Financing in the resale of used mainframe computers in the open market. In 2007, after years of competing with IBM Global Financing, IBM instituted a policy called the “Six Month Rule” on QSGI but not on its subsidiary, IBM Global Financing. This policy, in-turn, caused lost profits and business, and effectively eliminated QSGI’s ability to compete in the used mainframe market with IBM Global Financing. Additionally, this caused the users of this equipment to purchase used equipment at uncompetitive prices from IBM Global Financing.

According to Juan Bauta II of The Ferraro Law Firm, QSGI’s lead counselor in the matter, “We are confident that the court will recognize how IBM and its IGF division have worked together to monopolize the used mainframe market and destroy all competition in that market.”

Marc Sherman, CEO of QSGI, said, “The company’s once vibrant and profitable mainframe remarketing division was irreparably damaged by the ‘Six Month Rule.’ Overnight the move by IBM made it impossible to compete, caused our exit from the mainframe remarketing business, and left the company with substantial asset write-offs.”

QSGI specializes in technology asset management, new product sales, used product remarketing, enterprise maintenance, spare parts sales, end of lifecycle management, hard drive destruction and data erasure, fee-based e-waste disposal, and green recycling.