The High Court ruled that Betfair’s chatroom service fell within the scope of the EU E-Commerce Directive and Irish rules on hosting third-party information. The decision resolved preliminary legal issues in two linked libel cases; it did not determine whether Betfair was liable or whether it satisfied the conditions for the protection at trial.
The cases were brought by bookmakers Seamus Mulvaney and Ellen Martin against The Sporting Exchange Limited, trading as Betfair. They allege that comments posted by Betfair customers in its online chatroom were published by Betfair and were defamatory. The people who posted the comments were joined as third parties in the respective proceedings.
The parties asked the court to decide in advance of trial whether the Directive and the European Communities (Directive 2000/31/EC) Regulations 2003 applied to Betfair’s chatroom. Mr Justice Clarke delivered judgment on 18 March 2009.
The plaintiffs argued that gambling was excluded from the Directive and the Irish regulations. The court accepted that Betfair’s website facilitated gambling through bets between customers, but distinguished that activity from the chatroom. The chatroom operated in a separate section without betting functionality, and there was no significant connection between posting comments there and placing bets. The gambling exclusion therefore did not prevent Betfair from relying on the Directive for its chatroom service.
The court also held that the chatroom was a service involving the storage of information supplied by users, and that Betfair qualified as an intermediary service provider under the 2003 Regulations. It followed that Betfair could, in principle, rely on the protections in the Directive and regulations.
That protection is conditional. Betfair must establish at trial that it lacked the relevant knowledge or awareness, or that it acted promptly to remove or disable access to the material after becoming aware of it. The judge said those factual questions were not before him at the preliminary hearing. The ruling did not decide whether the comments were defamatory, whether Betfair published them, or whether the conditions for the defence are met in either case.