Betco obtains LGA injunction

GTECH-backed consortium Betco Holdings has obtained a court order to temporarily shut down negotiations between Maltco and the Maltese Lotteries and Gaming Authority over a contract give Maltco exclusive rights to operate the island’s national lottery games.

Betco have obtained the injunction after Maltco, the preferred bidder, was attempting to gain exclusivity across a greater variety of products, aside from the national lottery, Super Five and lotto operations. The other products were not named in the statement, but are thought to include sports betting and football pools according to the Times of Malta newspaper.

While admitting that the initial tender for a lottery software provider clearly highlighted the exclusivity rights, Betco claim that the fact that Maltco are looking to gain rights to a wider range of products before having been awarded the contract suggested that the tender was being handled unfairly, describing the move as going “beyond the clarifications made by the same Privatisation Unit over the concession.”

A statement released by Betco’s lawyers Andrew Muscat and Simon Schembri states that the LGA’s privatisation unit had approached both bidders before the tender was opened to explain that “the chosen bidder would be chosen on the financial offer, and that there were going to be no negotiations.”

“It is not permissible that after the bidders made their offers on the basis of the call for tenders, those same conditions are changed, violating the principles of equality and transparency which are applicable to any tendering process,” the statement went on to say.

After obtaining the injunction Betco have urged the courts to denounce the potential extension of exclusivity across a number of products as “abusive and illegal.” It claimed that had it been aware of the ability to change the deal, it would have submitted a higher offer.