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Racing NSW's 'court win' is just a desperate grab for publicity

So Racing NSW was successful with the Federal Court in their demands to see some documents from Betfair, making it sound like Betfair had something to hide. Well, being a private company without the need to publish their accounts each year (which they do anyway), you could understand why they'd be reluctant to do so. After all, there are dozens of rival firms out there who would love to find out how it all worked so well. But Racing NSW's victory was rather hollow.

Clutching at Straws

What Racing NSW forgot to explain in its Bulletin, was that the discovery claim it was appealing against was one which asked for some 60,000 documents from Betfair, including material prepared well before its Race Fields legislation went to Parliament.

Justice Perram disallowed that request on the basis that he could not see how such an onerous burden should be imposed on Betfair.

The final request allowed by the Full Federal Court amounted to some 100 documents.

The order was only permitted because counsel for Racing NSW admitted that their case had little chance of success unless something turned up in the new documents.


Bill Saunders continues to sink the boots into Racing NSW's spin machine:

The second element of the Bulletin repeated the fiction that the Supreme Court in Victoria had decreed that turnover was the only valid basis of determining a race fields fee.

It actually said nothing of the sort, as pointed out by Michael Duffy, Chairman of Racing Victoria in his own Participants Bulletin yesterday.

In what was purely an administrative law matter, TAB Limited claimed that the wording of the Victorian Race Fields law referring to "amount or amounts" required a precise fee to be charged as opposed to using a formula.



The betting on Racing NSW winning the race fields fee legislation against Betfair and Sportsbet is 'write your own ticket'.

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