Unibet NOT Worried About $36M Lawsuit

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Unibet not worried about lawsuit

ATG sues Unibet for 240 million sweedish kroner (approximatly US $36M). ATG claims that Unibet continuedly has stolen information from their unique database since 2000.

ATG collects all possible information about racing horses in their database called "Sportdatabasen" - a database that has been worked on for several years and the development of which has cost 200 million swedish kroner.

– Here you find all racetrack results, upcoming race information and more - whitout it you can't run any gambling on horses in Sweeden, says ATG's Vice VD Benno Eliasson.

Unibet is not a company with license to use the database

A number of media owns access and license to use the database - but Unibet is not one of these.

– It is ATG who owns it and about 300 newsmedia have license to use it, among others Travnet.se - however it may not be used for commercial use by foreign gambling companies and the like - they don't have any signed agreement.

Several gambling companies use ATG's database but only Unibet is now being sued.

– Several other gambling companies also use the database but Unibet is one of the companies who most systamatically use the data on a big scale.

ATG sues Unibet for 240 million swedish kroner and also demands that they remove all the data they have collected so far. In ATG's oppinion the amount should add up to a teoretical license fee of 10 percent of Unibets gross revenue in Sweden since 2000 where Unibet started using the database.

ATG claims that they several times have made Unibet aware that they were not entitled to use the database, however Unibet is of the opinion that they haven't done anything illigal.

Unibet is not worried

Lawyer Monique Wadsted acts as Unibets legal advisor and have the following comment:

– It is correct that Unibet uses horse race information that origins from STC.  (Note: STC is the swedish horse racing association). To put these together is an ongoing task undertaken by STC in order to be capable of arranging the horse races and it's not a type of investment that one would protect through database protection law - the information should be free available to anyone. This is pointed out in several cases.

A couple of years ago a similar case went before a swedish Judge. The issue was whether Svenska Spel had permission to offer betting on English Soccer games and to use game lists without paying for the use of these. According to the judge they did not have to pay.

– The case that went before the Swedish Supreme Court was exactly Svenska Spel, that used similar information from the company Fixture Marketing, which in the end also lost the case. There is also the case from the EU-Court between British Horse racing Board and the gaming company William Hill, which is almost identical with our case, and which British Horse racing Board lost. Unibet is therefore not specifically worried about the lawsuit, says Monique Wadsted.

In Benno Eliasson's opinion, however, the case of Svenska Spel is not comparable with the current case.

- That case was not about the database without the license to offer gambling, that is the main difference between the two cases, says he.