Unibet Not Concerned By $36-Mil Lawsuit

Unibet has revealed they are not concerned by the $36 million lawsuit brought against them by Swedish government owned ATG. The ATG claims Unibet was not licensed to use their horse racing database, therefore owes 10% of related profits to ATG.

According to Unibet's legal advisor, the company should have every right to use the STC database free of charge, and believes past cases of a similar nature will help to reveal a win for Unibet as well.

The STC, (the Swedish horse racing association), arranges the horse racing schedules that make up the ATG horse racing database. Unibet asserts that this information should be free to use and does not fall under the database protection law.

Several years ago, a similar case was brought before the Swedish courts. Svenska Spel was offering betting on English Soccer, with the issue being whether they had permission to do so suing the game lists without paying a fee. According to the judge overseeing the case, yes, they had every right to use the information freely.

Svenska Spel went up against Fixture Marketing in the exact same kind of case, this time in the Swedish Supreme Court, and again won the case, with the ruling stating they did not need to pay for the use of such information.

Another case in the EU courts saw gaming company William Hill sued by the British Horse Racing Board. Again the issue was unlicensed and unpaid use of horse racing information - almost identical to the ATG-Unibet case ongoing - and again, the gaming operator, William Hill, won the case.

Considering these past outcomes, Unibet's legal advisor, Monique Wadsted has revealed that the company is not worried about the impending lawsuit for 240-million Swedish kroner - approximately USD $36-million.