SIS loses raceday data case in High Court

The High Court has today ruled Sports Information Services (SIS) acted unlawfully in supplying raceday data belonging to Arena Racing Company (ARC) and The Racing Partnership (TRP) to Ladbrokes, Coral and Betfred.

TRP and ARC alleged the three operators had not secured a contract with TRP to supply live data and TV coverage from six racecourses (Doncaster, Lingfield Park, Southwell, Royal Windsor, Wolverhampton and Worcester) from the start of 2017.

The court established SIS knew of ARC’s restrictions on the use of raceday data, and that ARC had granted these rights exclusively to TRP for the purposes of fixed odds betting. It also found the Tote had no contractual agreement with ARC to collect or sub-license raceday data and was only allowed on ARC racecourses for the purposes of pool betting.

In a judgment given today, the Hon Mr Justice Zacaroli asserted that SIS should have understood that usage of data belonging to the Tote imposed obligations of confining this use to pool betting only. Zacaroli ruled that live raceday data relating to TRP races for the purposes of fixed odds betting is confidential and should not have been supplied without permission of TRP.

“TRP has the exclusive right to disseminate it, and SIS and The Tote breached duties of confidence owed to TRP by unlawfully taking, supplying and commercially exploiting that data,” Zacaroli added.

The plaintiffs further alleged Ladbrokes, Coral and Betfred were “complicit in a plan to compile enough data from other sources to create an unofficial service” from the Tote’s on-course presence and other sources to be supplied by SIS, without any of them paying TRP. TRP commenced legal action against SIS in January 2017 over these claims.

However, Zacaroli dismissed ARC’s and TRP claims of an unlawful conspiracy between SIS, the Tote and the operators, asserting that only SIS was liable under breach of confidence rules.

Giving its reaction to the ruling, Arena Racing CEO Martin Cruddace said he was happy the court “unequivocally recognised” the enforceability of its raceday data exclusivity, confirming the company would “continue to monitor any infringements of our rights and take appropriate action wherever such infringements are found”.

Cruddace added: “It is clear and, in our view, beyond any reasonable dispute that Ladbrokes, Coral and Betfred were only able to not enter into media rights agreements with TRP, on proper commercial terms (between 1 January and late July 2017), because of their access to raceday data unlawfully supplied by SIS, and it follows that SIS is responsible for the very significant damages to which TRP is entitled.”

Proceedings will now shift to determining the amount of damages payable by SIS to TRP.

A spokesperson for SIS said they were happy that any allegations of conspiracy and copyright and database infringement made by SIS were dismissed by the judge. It also said it would potentially consider appealing this ruling.

“We have taken note of his judgement that a technical breach of confidence occurred in regard to our use of raceday data emanating from TRP courses, whilst acknowledging that SIS did take precautions, and acted upon a warranty provided by the Tote, which had supplied the data in question.” SIS added.