Commercial Court No. 2 of Madrid has temporarily suspended the competition for the adjudication of LaLiga VAR services summoned by Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF). The court admitted for processing the request for precautionary measures presented by MEDIAPRO GROUP against said contest, preventing the Federation from judging any of the established lots.
According to the Judge’s Order, “RFEF has a dominant position in the marketing market of the provision of the video arbitration assistance service to the extent that this entity exclusively manages technological assistance services for the VAR and no other entity offers these services in Spain”. Based on this position of dominance, the order maintains that “RFEF was able to have anti-competitive bidding rules to benefit a competitor and harm MEDIAPRO, conditioning, in a narrow market with few agents, the awarding of certain services (VAR ) with the possibility of providing other accessory services (SAOT), with the same objective of predicting the outcome of the contest”.
In this sense, the judge also appreciates indications of anti-competitive action in weighing the criteria of the award because “in the indication, the insufficient weighing of the criteria used is mentioned, the part of the price of the offer is not relevant, especially when the weighing is carried out in relation to an insufficient standard, such as of experience.” Finally, the judge remembered that “The RFEF has repeatedly engaged in abusive behaviour which our Courts have allowed”.
Within 20 days, the term established by law, GRUP MEDIAPRO will file a lawsuit against the Federation for abuse of a dominant position and anticompetitive actions. This is the fourth anti-competitive action by the federation denounced by GRUP MEDIAPRO and all of them have been supported by court decisions.
The rules of the contest established that the Federation has to communicate next Tuesday the winners of the VAR service of the Spanish La Liga for the next four seasons (23-24/26-27). According to the request for precautionary measures from GRUP MEDIAPROthe content of these tender bases expressly aims to provide the service to the company currently providing it, clearly harms other providers and constitutes anti-competitive behavior and abuse of a dominant position, such as stated in the court order.
GRUP MEDIAPRO considers that “after this suspension by judicial decision, the Federation shall call another contest with bases that will allow all suppliers to compete on equal terms and without the intention of excluding GRUP MEDIAPRO”.
As stated in the precautionary petition presented by GRUP MEDIAPRO, the RFEF, despite being a private public utility association, has duties of responsibility and good faith in the management of semi-public resources. Until now, and since 2022, the conduct of the RFEF and its president aimed at harming GRUP MEDIAPRO is involve condemning the RFEF up to four times. In the Federation’s 2021 annual accounts, it has already provided €6.6M for the payment of compensation for these future judgments.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
