As we know, James Dyson is enthusiastically pro Brexit and he cites as his main objection the fact that tests under the EU regulations were written to favour less efficient German vacuum cleaners and against his higher efficiency, bagless designs. He brought a case in 2015 to the European General Court which at first found against him (HERE). I think it was this case that sent him into furious Brexiteer mode. We then had the referendum where he featured prominently arguing that we should leave the EU (HERE).
In 2017, he appealed the case to the higher European Court of Justice (ECJ) and won (HERE). The lower court was wrong, the tests, the ECJ ruled, were flawed in favour of machines with bags and didn't accurately reflect power consumption under loaded conditions. The companies who benefited were Bosch and Siemens apparently (although not Miele as far as I can see who make very nice vacuum cleaners as I can attest) and Dyson therefore thinks there was some kind of conspiracy against his company and this country.
He then went on to sue Bosch and Siemens but a preliminary judgement released in May found against him (HERE).
However, the picture is not quite as Dyson would have us believe. Firstly, the tests that he complains about were devised by CENELEC, a body which is not part of the EU although it sets harmonised electrical standards for them. At the moment 34 countries make up the membership and our representative is the British Standards Institute (BSI). It's entirely possible I assume, that they did conspire against Dyson but it was the ECJ - in other words the European Union, the one he wants to leave, that upheld his complaint.
If Dyson had a complaint it should have been against the BSI who either didn't take Dyson into account or didn't argue strongly enough in CENELEC. Of course, once we're out of the EU, although we will probably continue to be in CENELEC, I'm not sure the ECJ would even hear a case from a third country where CENELEC was accused of bias against a third country manufacturer, which is what Dyson will be.
As far as I can see Dyson has shot himself in the foot. This is the difference, writ large, in being a member of the single market and influencing the rules, and having access to it where you have no influence.
