Just a little less than two years after Asustek Computer and Gigabyte Technology attempted to form a joint venture to produce computer components, Asustek accused Gigabyte of defamatory claims and filed a lawsuit against its smaller rival in Taiwan court and reported about Gigabyte’s actions to Fair Trade Commission of Taiwan.

At a recent event for journalists, Gigabyte Technology reportedly claimed that Asustek’s energy processing unit (EPU) technology implemented on Asus mainboards to reduce power consumption of personal computers did not have substantial effect on energy saving, a fact which Asus denies. In addition, according to Asustek, Gigabyte also demonstrated a photograph of a computer component with exploded capacitors and led the audience to believe it was an Asus product to support its allegations that Asustek uses questionable quality components. However, Asus said that the image was found to be taken from a photograph of a graphics card manufactured by another vendor.

“The action of misrepresenting a third party product to be an Asus product is truly defamatory and clearly outside the realm of decent competition. […] Hence, while it is common to have competition among companies, the use of the above mentioned methods are defamatory and condemnable. Asus deeply resents Gigabyte’s action(s). Asus has reported such acts to the Fair Trade Commission of Taiwan and officially filed a lawsuit against Gigabyte for those defamatory acts,” a statement of Asustek Computer with Taiwan Stock Exchange reads.

The world’s largest supplier of mainboards and some other computer components did not indicate its demands and whether it wants to get a compensation of any kind from Gigabyte Technology.

The competition on the market of computer components is very intensive these days due to frequent launches of new products and technologies. As a result, manufacturers of products like graphics cards and mainboards use any methods to make their products look better than competitive offerings.

Gigabyte said in a statement that it had not received any messages and could not comment on the issue.