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BAGS lost its High Court bid to stop AMRAC supplying bookmakers with horse racing images from 31 UK racecourses

On August 8, Justice Hugh Morgan ruled that 31 UK racecourses' exclusive selling of their media rights to AMRAC (part-owned by the racecourses) did not infringe competition law, dismissing claims to this effect by BAGS, a betting industry representative body. Justice Morgan also dismissed AMRAC's counterclaim in so far as it alleged that analogous exclusive agreements between SIS (AMRAC's competitor) and a number of UK and Irish racecourses were anticompetitive.

In dismissing BAGS's complaint and AMRAC's counterclaim, Justice Morgan noted that exclusive agreements are common in sport media rights, and that competition in this market takes the form of ex-ante competition for the media rights. The two sets of exclusive agreements are thus consistent with effective competition in the market, as demonstrated by the fact that AMRAC's exclusive agreements enabled it to enter the market in 2007. Justice Morgan was critical of the claimant's argument that an entrant should be allowed only as much exclusive rights as is necessary to enter the market, as well as the evidence that the claimant put forward to demonstrate that AMRAC had secured more exclusive rights than was strictly necessary to enter the market.

William Bishop of CRA, instructed by SIS to give evidence as an expert witness, opposed both the BAGS claim and AMRAC counterclaim. He was supported by Lorenzo Coppi and Adrien Cervera-Jackson.

See the Judgment for further details.

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