The Racing Partnership Ltd & Ors v Sports Information Services Ltd

This case was about a commercial battle over live horseracing data after one supplier lost rights and another supplier took over. The legal labels were misuse of confidential information and unlawful means conspiracy, but the business problem was more familiar: who can collect valuable information, who can resell it, and what happens when a business keeps serving customers after its formal rights end.

The Court of Appeal drew an important distinction. A recipient of information may avoid liability for misuse of confidential information if it reasonably relied on assurances from the supplier that the supplier was entitled to share it. But that does not remove all risk.

Knowingly obtaining data in breach of website or platform terms can still matter in a broader conspiracy claim. The decision is useful well beyond racing because many businesses rely on event feeds, listings, pricing data, platform content, market information and operational updates that are valuable for only a short time.

TRP supplied live betting and horseracing data to off-course and online bookmakers under agreements with racecourse owners. For six Arena racecourses, TRP’s rights began on 1 January 2017 under a 2016 agreement with Arena. Before that, SIS had held the relevant rights under an earlier five-year agreement with Arena.

The information mattered because bookmakers needed it in real time. Betting Shows gave a representative pre-race price for each horse. Raceday Data included practical race information such as going, non-runners, jockey changes, the off, finish time, inquiries and results. The value of that information was short-lived, but commercially critical.

Arena tried to protect the value of racecourse-generated information through standard entry terms. Those terms were published online, signposted at racecourse entrances and incorporated into entry contracts. TRP relied on those terms as part of its case, saying they helped show the information was protected and that breaches of them formed part of the alleged unlawful means.

TRP said SIS did not stop supplying bookmakers when its rights ended. Instead, SIS used other routes. For Betting Shows, SIS used data from betting exchange websites including Betfair and Betdaq. SIS admitted that during January and February 2017 it knowingly breached the exchanges’ express terms and conditions by taking and using pricing information from those sites for that purpose.

For Raceday Data, SIS relied on an agreement with the Tote dated 30 December 2016. The Tote had long operated a pool betting service on British racecourses and already collected certain raceday information for its own dedicated feed. The trial judge found that the data the Tote provided to SIS for fixed-odds betting went beyond the ordinary Tote feed and even beyond the data listed in the relevant appendix to the Tote agreement.

The judge also found that SIS employees attended the Tote’s premises in Wigan in January 2017 to obtain information outside the Tote feed. Those findings were not challenged by SIS on appeal.

TRP also said this was not just a sourcing dispute. It alleged a combination involving SIS, the Tote, Betfred and Ladbrokes. The trial judge found that those entities had combined with each other in relation to the supply of Betting Shows and Raceday Data, and that the purpose was to help Betfred and Ladbrokes resist signing with TRP in January 2017 and improve their bargaining position.

The appeal raised several linked questions about data rights, access rights and business conduct.

First, was SIS liable for misuse of confidential information when it received Raceday Data from the Tote after SIS had lost direct rights from Arena? That depended not only on whether the information had the necessary quality of confidence, but also on whether a reasonable recipient in SIS’s position should have understood that the Tote was not entitled to provide it.

Secondly, the court had to consider the effect of Arena’s racecourse entry terms and whether those terms bound the Tote. That mattered because TRP relied on the Arena terms in two ways. It said the terms supported the confidentiality case, and it also said breach of those terms formed part of the unlawful means case.

Thirdly, the court considered the Tote’s position on the racecourses. The judgment says the Tote had an implied permission under its agreement with Arena to enter the racecourses for the purposes of its pool betting service, but no wider permission. The court therefore had to consider what followed if the Tote went beyond that scope when collecting or distributing data for fixed-odds betting.

Finally, the court had to decide whether TRP could succeed in unlawful means conspiracy. One route involved the Tote’s misuse of confidential information. Another involved SIS’s admitted breaches of the betting exchanges’ terms and conditions when taking pricing data. The court had to decide whether those acts were relevant unlawful means connected to the injury TRP said it had suffered.

The Court of Appeal allowed SIS’s appeal on misuse of confidential information. In practical terms, the court was not prepared to treat SIS as bound by an equitable duty of confidence on the facts found.

A central part of the reasoning was the position of a reasonable recipient. The court stressed that the right question was not a refined legal analysis worked out later in litigation. It was what a reasonable person in SIS’s position would have understood at the time.

SIS had made inquiries of the Tote and had received assurances and a contractual warranty that led SIS to conclude the Tote was lawfully entitled to provide the information. The court considered it difficult to see why a reasonable person would have been expected to make further or different inquiries and reach the opposite conclusion.

The Court of Appeal also agreed that the Tote was not bound by Arena’s entry terms. That meant TRP could not rely on those terms against the Tote in the way it had argued.

At the same time, the Court of Appeal allowed TRP’s cross-appeal on unlawful means conspiracy in part. The claim succeeded so far as the unlawful means consisted of the Tote’s misuse of confidential information and SIS’s breaches of the exchanges’ terms and conditions, but not on other alleged bases.

The judgment therefore split the case. SIS escaped liability as recipient of the Tote data for misuse of confidential information, but the wider conspiracy claim still survived in part on the specific unlawful means identified by the court.

If your business depends on data, feeds, listings, prices, event information or platform content, this case is a reminder that legal risk sits at several levels at once.

Start with source control. Ask who controls the venue, system, platform or feed. Then ask what contractual rights exist to collect, package, transmit and resell the information. A business can get into trouble not only by copying data directly, but also by receiving it through a workaround route after rights have changed hands.

The case also shows the limits of confidentiality claims. Valuable information is not automatically confidential as against every recipient. If you receive information from an established commercial counterparty, ask direct questions about entitlement to share it and get the answers in writing. A contractual warranty can matter because the court may look closely at what a reasonable recipient would have understood at the time.

But do not overread that point. A warranty is not a complete shield. If your team knowingly takes data from a website or platform in breach of its terms, that conduct can still create serious exposure. This case is a warning, not a roadmap. Visible or technically accessible information is not necessarily free to use for a commercial purpose.

The judgment also matters for joint commercial strategies. The trial judge found a combination between SIS, the Tote, Betfred and Ladbrokes, with the purpose of helping Betfred and Ladbrokes resist signing with TRP and improve bargaining position. The Court of Appeal’s treatment of the conspiracy claim shows that coordinated conduct can create extra risk where unlawful acts are part of the means used to gain leverage over a rival.

For rights holders, the lesson is operational as well as legal. If you want to control valuable information generated at a venue or through a system, your documents need to work together. A licence agreement, entry terms, contractor terms and customer supply terms should point in the same direction. If they do not, enforcement becomes harder and recipients may argue that the restrictions did not bind the relevant party.

This case is a good prompt for a practical review of contracts, access rights and staff behaviour. Problems often arise in the handover period when one supplier’s rights end and another supplier’s rights begin.

If you are the rights holder, focus on whether your restrictions actually bind the people collecting and transmitting the information. If you are the recipient or reseller, focus on whether your supplier has the upstream rights it says it has and whether your team is using any side channel that depends on breaching another party’s terms.

The Court of Appeal judgment in The Racing Partnership Ltd & Ors v Sports Information Services Ltd was handed down on 9 October 2020. It arose from appeals against a High Court decision after a three-week trial.

For most business readers, the lasting value of the case is not horse-racing law as such. It is the court’s treatment of data sourcing, recipient knowledge, warranties, platform terms and coordinated conduct in a commercial information market.