OFT: Attheraces TV deal illegal

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The UK Office of Fair Trading has judged the collective sale of TV rights for horseracing to The Atheraces joint venture between media firms Arena Leisure, BSkyB and Channel 4 was illegal The consumer watchdog said the 49 race course acted anti-competitively by negotiating a television deal as a group, extracting a better price from Attheraces in the process. The ruling follows the closure of the Attheraces channel last month, after owners BSkyB, Channel 4 and Arena Leisure decided they were not making sufficiently high returns on the £307 million (E445 million), 10-year agreement. "We need to make it clear when collective selling may breach competition law. It is important that sporting bodies and others carefully assess whether, collective selling agreements may restrict competition before they enter into them," OFT Director of competition enforcement Vincent Smith said in a statement. The OFT said if the deal had not already collapsed it could have taken further measures.

Arena Leisure, a channel partner and owner of six race courses itself, is now trying to negotiate new deal with individual course and said it would study the OFT judgement.