Richard Desmond’s Northern & Shell group has hit out at the “seriously flawed” procurement process that handed the National Lottery licence to Czech gambling group Allwyn Entertainment, a London court heard today.
The company and its subsidiary, The New Lottery Company, filed a procurement lawsuit against the Gambling Commission in February over its decision to award the licence to Allwyn two years ago.
At a hearing at the High Court on Wednesday, Northern & Shell’s leading barrister Michael Bowsher KC described it as a “failed process” and said if the business had a “real chance in a fair process”, it would have won.
Northern & Shell claims the Gambling Commission failed to “ensure equal treatment of the applicants”, adding that it provided “unfairly favourable treatment to Allwyn”, according to its written arguments.
However, the regulator’s leading barrister Sarah Hannaford KC hit back, arguing that there was no dispute as “The New Lottery Company did extremely badly in the competition”.
She said that because the company failed the first test in the procurement process, it didn’t allow them to progress.
Representatives for Allwyn, which took control of the lottery in February, and Camelot, the previous holders of the licence, were also present at the hearing.
A trial date hasn’t been set yet.
The Gambling Commission was hit with other legal challenges in the past over the decision to grant Allwyn the licence.
Camelot filed a claim shortly after the decision, with International Game Technology (IGT) joining the case as it provided operational software to Camelot, but later dropped its legal challenge.
In November 2022, Allwyn struck a deal to buy Camelot, which completed early last year.