I don't see this in my ShredLines feed so not sure how true it is. Would makes sense though.
I used to distro Flip until the guy in the UK told NHS to stop supplying us and only supply our local Quiksilver distro. I bet they tried that with other territories too.
Then Rowley left a couple months later.
If NHS is paying for all the guys to get to comps and do trips, royalties etc but being dictated to from UK as to who they can sell too, then yeah, I'd tell them to jump too.