Gambling.co.uk: Gambling News Archive

British Horseracing Board takes WillHill to European Court

Unlawful use of Internet database at centre of legal spat

Thursday 1st April 2004



The British Horseracing Board (BHB) is taking William Hill to the European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court, accusing the bookmaking giant of unlawfully using its database to facilitate its gambling operations.

The BHB database contains information on the pedigrees of over a million horses, as well as owners, trainers and jockeys and serves as a public resource for journalists, broadcasters, bookmakers and punters. The BHB claim that William Hill transposed the database directly onto their online sports betting site, thus infringing EU data protection laws.

The relevant legislation states that, “the repeated and systematic extraction and/or re-utilisation of insubstantial parts of the contents of the database […] which unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the maker of the database shall not be permitted'.

The case was referred to the European Court by the U.K. justice system. Following the hearing a senior judge will give a non-binding opinion on the cases before a final judgment.




Source: OnlineCasinoNews