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lamps
Forum Admin
United Kingdom
48 Posts |
 Posted - 20/05/2008 : 17:00:20
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OBG LLP Wins First Round in Ground Breaking Football Premier League Test Case
City law firm Orchard Brayton Graham LLP acting for two of the three defendants in "The Football Association Premier League Limited (FAPL) v QC Leisure & others" won the first round of a landmark case defending against the FAPL. Mr Justice Barling in the Royal Courts of Justice found in favour of the Defendants in an important interim application on Friday the 18th of January.
The legal action concerns the ability of the FAPL (the Claimant) to restrict distributors from selling foreign satellite decoder cards in the UK. The Defendants (including QC Leisure and a group of Publicans) have been importing and using non-UK decoder cards mainly from Europe in order to receive live Premier League football matches from foreign satellite broadcasts. FAPL contend that these acts are contrary to Sections 298 and 299 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Defendants argue that they are entitled in law to import and use decoder cards without restriction from EU based satellite broadcasters under the relevant EU Directive, (The Conditional Access Directive) and under the rules of the Treaty of Rome covering the free movement of goods and services in the European Single Market. In particular they argue that FAPL's licence agreements breach EU competition law by seeking to prevent Satellite Broadcasters from supplying cards outside their home countries.
FAPL applied to the court to have summary judgment dismissing the EU Competition Law defence.
In ruling, Mr Justice Barling stated, "The contractual provision with which we are concerned does not consist merely of a grant of such exclusive rights; indeed the clause in question is not granting any right at all: on the contrary the provision appears to impose certain obligations upon the foreign broadcaster, namely to undertake to "procure" that non - UK decoder cards are not authorised or enabled by the licensee or any sub-licensee or distributor, agent or employee of such persons, so as to enable anyone to view the foreign broadcaster's transmission outside the latter's territory. In other words, foreign licensees are apparently required to prevent use of the decoder cards outside their licensed territory"
The Judge ruled that "the Community legislation relied upon by the Defendants fortifies me in the conclusion that the Article 81 defence is a legitimate subject for a trial, and that the application for summary judgment should be rejected." and ..."that it would not be appropriate to stay the trial of the competition defence". The Judge awarded costs to the Defendants.
OBG's team is led by top intellectual property Partner Paul Sutton instructing Martin Howe QC of 8 New Square. Of the judgment Partner Paul Sutton said, "We are pleased that the path is now clear for the court to examine the important European issues in detail. We look forward to the full trial which is set for the 14th of April 2008"
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OBG LLP Wins First Round
