SIS HAND FORCED BY "UNREASONABLE" BHB

24 January 2002 - Satellite Information Services ("SIS") last night (Wednesday January 23, 2002) formally notified the British Horseracing Board ("BHB") that it will institute legal proceedings, seeking declaratory relief and damages, if the BHB goes ahead with the planned introduction of its Commercial Policy relating to audio/visual and text licences on May 1st, 2002.

The BHB's Commercial Policy is already the subject of investigation by the Office of Fair Trading, on the basis that it has reasonable grounds for suspecting that it breaches the UK Competition Act. SIS has also received legal advice that it additionally infringes Articles 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty.

SIS Chief Executive David Holdgate said : "I understand and respect the BHB's desire to negotiate the best possible deal. That's business. But when they step outside the law and attempt to impose anti-competitive arrangements for their own ends, then they damage not only their own reputations, but that of the sport they are supposed to lead.

"We are taking this step with great reluctance. We've had endless meetings, many telephone calls, and exchanged a series of letters with the BHB and the Racecourse Association, all in the hope of a sensible commercial negotiation. I can only describe the response as rigid and unreasonable. Racing is being torn apart by too many disputes right now, and the BHB seems to be at the heart of them all. There's a desperate need for men of goodwill to sit down together, listen, compromise and come to agreements. All we are seeing from the BHB is the inflexible attempt to impose their master plan, regardless not only of others' interests, but also, apparently, of the laws of this country.

"I do not look forward to the legal costs, but pay them we must. We have a duty to protect our business and our customers. But I hate to think of what the BHB's legal fees must be, and those, of course, must be funded by racing."

He explained, "The Commercial Policy will cause great damage to SIS. Not only will it seek to exclude SIS from its current business of generating live pictures of UK horseracing on course, and of providing as part of its service its own on-course information to SIS's customers, but it will also attempt to impose a variety of anti-competitive restrictions upon SIS as part of the cost of obtaining UK horseracing pictures and data (generated by other suppliers such as the PA and RaceTech). The effect of these measures would be to restrict SIS's ability to operate effectively, or even at all, to the detriment of SIS's customers and consumers alike."

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