Seems obvious the NRL know they are in deep shit with this court case. Judging by the Judge's comments the AFL shouldn't have much to worry about. Unlike the NRL, the AFL accepted the highest bid for its TV rights.NRL keen to settle with Seven in $1.1b pay TV claim
By Elisabeth Sexton
November 5, 2005
http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/nrl ... 98677.html
The NRL would "clearly be interested" in settling its part of the Seven Network's $1.1 billion damages claim over the 2002 demise of its pay TV arm C7, rugby league chief executive David Gallop said yesterday.
On Thursday, Justice Ronald Sackville said he might order compulsory mediation between Seven and the two football codes it has included among its 22 targets.
The judge's comments followed queries he made during Seven's opening address about why the vendors of broadcasting rights should be sued for reducing competition.
The large Federal Court lawsuit is chiefly aimed at the three owners of pay TV retailer Foxtel: News Ltd, Publishing & Broadcasting Ltd and Telstra. Seven says the three aimed to create a monopoly for Foxtel and for pay TV sports programmer Fox Sports (50/50 owned by News and PBL).
The alleged method was depriving C7 of the pay TV rights to the AFL and NRL in December 2000, and blocking C7 from either selling its programs to Foxtel or setting up its own retail business on Telstra's cable.
"We have never thought we should be being sued by Channel Seven," Mr Gallop said. "We emphatically deny the suggestion that we didn't accept the best deal for our game."
When he opened Seven's case in September, barrister Jonathan Sumption, QC, said C7's offer for the NRL rights from 2001-07 promised the code at least $50 million more than the winning bid from Fox Sports. On the AFL front, Seven argued that Foxtel offered such a high price that the only economically rational explanation was that it was intended to drive C7 out of business.
On September 13, Justice Sackville asked why the AFL should be sued for accepting the highest offer for its rights.
Mr Sumption said: "Where you have assets indispensable to the making of profits in a particular area and in a relatively small market, there may well be circumstances in which the transfer of those assets into the same hands at the highest price is an anti-competitive result." An alternative was to seek authorisation from the competition regulator, but this had not been done, he said.
"It does suggest that vendors need to be very careful with whom they deal," the judge said.
On Thursday, he urged major parties to spend a week's recess considering settlement or at least narrowing the issues in dispute.
Naughty, naughty NRL.
Ah well, you're going to pay for your past decisions now. Don't suppose they had much choice when they're half owned by News Ltd and Channel 9 has a big say in the way things run down at NRL HQ. Still how is as Gallop says, accepting less than what Channel 7 were offering, the best deal for the good of the game? 