Irish bookies take €20m action against British racing board

The Irish bookmakers are seeking to recover €20 million in licence fees that they paid the British Horseracing Board (BHB) in exchange for information like runners, riders and odds that they broadcast from screens in their premises before each race.

The information is known as pre-race data and the bookmakers receive it from Satellite Information Systems (SIS), a network that broadcasts live racing and racing information to betting shops.

The bookmakers have a long-standing contract with SIS for the data, but the BHB ultimately provides it.

Former Fine Gael minister Ivan Yates and a number of his fellow bookmakers are set to take on the British horseracing authorities in a €20 million High Court case beginning tomorrow.

Three years ago, the BHB told the bookmakers that they had to pay the board a data licence to broadcast the information. The charge came to a total of €20 million for all the bookmakers involved.

The BHB's claim was partly based on an EU directive covering electronic data, and on the basis that it can legally charge for the information.

Last year, UK bookmakers challenged a similar charge in the European Court of Justice (ECJ). It ruled that the directive did not cover pre-race data, and sent the issue back to the domestic courts.

In July, the English Court of Appeal ruled that William Hill, the UK's biggest betting shop chain, did not have to pay for the information.

Four years ago, the BHB, which administers horseracing in Britain, tried to charge newspapers for carrying racecards, which contain the same information, but backed down when they threatened to stop printing the cards.

British pre-race data is available free from a number of sources, including the teletext services offered by a number of UK TV channels.

The dispute does not centre on the coverage of the actual races themselves, as the rights to that coverage belong to the individual racecourses, which are independent of the BHB.

Mr Yates, who was agriculture minister in the Fine Gael led rainbow coalition in the mid-1990s, is spearheading the Irish bookmakers' case. He quit full-time politics in 2002 to concentrate on his Celtic Bookmakers business, which has 34 outlets.

He is likely to be amongst the first witnesses to take the stand when the case kicks off in the High Court's commercial division tomorrow.

Plaintiffs in the case include the Republic's second biggest bookmaker, Boylesports, and a range of small and medium-sized players, but not the market leader, Paddy Power. Neither are the Irish subsidiaries of British bookmakers, Ladbrokes and William Hill, involved.

Solicitors Arthur Cox and senior counsel Bill Shipsey are representing the bookmakers and the actual case itself is likely to cost €1 million and last four days.