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Welcome to the News desk.
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British Horseracing Authority challenges Levy Board |
09/09/2011 |
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Richard
Whitehouse |
BRITISH
HORSERACING AUTHORITY COMMENT ON LEVY BOARD ANNOUNCEMENT
British Horseracing Authority Acting Chief
Executive Chris Brand said:
Levy yield is in alarming decline, as
the mechanism fails to deal with the modern betting market. Yesterday, the Levy
Board, a public body whose statutory duty is to collect Levy, failed to take
the most obvious and necessary steps to arrest this decline, by not pursuing
the professional users (bookmakers and professional gamblers) of betting
exchanges who are a significant part of todays betting landscape.
For over two years now, the BHA has been calling upon the Levy
Board to obtain definitive clarification on whether "in business" betting
exchange users are liable to pay Levy. We have always maintained that this is
essentially a legal question that can only be determined by the courts.
Nevertheless, the Board decided to undertake a lengthy and expensive public
consultation seeking views on this legal question. One of the Board's own
advisers, Michael Fordham QC noted in his opinion for the Levy Board that
it is ultimately only the courts who can authoritatively decide.
Instead we have had a year of procrastination whilst the financial outlook has
worsened and the leading betting exchange, Betfair, has moved offshore, outside
the jurisdiction of the Levy - although many of its users remain in Britain.
Distinguished leading counsel instructed by the Levy Board,
Racing, Betfair and the FRB do not agree as to the correct legal analysis. In
such a circumstance, it is surely incumbent on a public body to seek
clarification from the courts on this very important issue.
Cost is now cited as one reason for not
taking this matter to court, but the Levy Board must now have spent hundreds of
thousands of pounds of Racings money only to get us to this
position of uncertainty. .
Racing, represented by the Authority
and the sports two stakeholder groups, the Horsemens Group and the
Racecourse Association, has agreed and followed a united position throughout
this process, as we have done on all government-facing matters in recent years.
We are now reviewing all options.
It would be no surprise now to
see the £6m "voluntary" contribution to the Levy Board, committed to by
Betfair, materialise. Some will claim that this would be justification for
yesterdays decision. However, Betfair's own actions in cynically
withholding this money, and their previous permanent withdrawal of a separate
£1m voluntary payment, demonstrate why voluntary payments are no
substitute for enforceable commercial arrangements that put betting exchanges
on a level playing field with other platforms.
Betfair made
earlier statements in rebuttal to claims by the BHA and William Hill to the
effect that laying horses in a race was fundamentally the same as backing them.
Betfair also said that William Hill had mis-calculated when estimating a levy
figure of £30m due to be paid by Betfair for the turnover on British
Horce Racing.
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