The appeals court will rule tomorrow on a case involving Dundalk Stadium and bookmakers who feel their contracts were breached following the €35 million redevelopment of the racecourse as an all-weather track in 2007.
In early 2015 three bookmakers were awarded between €23,000 and €48,000 by the High Court arising out of the loss of their bettng ring pitch positions at Dundalk Stadium.
At the time Mr Justice Gerard Hogan awarded €48,376 to Newry-based bookie Patrick O’Hare, €41,484 to racing commentator John Hughes and €23,929 to Francis Hyland from the Irish National Bookmakers’ Association.
They represented three test cases on behalf of 33 bookmakers who are suing the racecourse for breach of contract. The other cases were put on hold after Dundalk Stadium appealed the High Court’s decision.
It emerged after that Dundalk Stadium could face a €700,000 legal bill for losing the case and this could rise further if their appeal proves unsuccessful tomorrow with the remaining bookmakers waiting to make compensation claims for loss of earnings.
The bookies claim that Dundalk Racing (1999) Ltd, trading as Dundalk Stadium, breached their contracts under national rules by demanding an €8,000 capital contribution from each of them towards the redevelopment of the venue before they could return to do business from what had been their established pitches at the racecourse.
Dundalk Racing argued that as it was a new racecourse, and not registered until August 2007, seeking a contribution when it did was not governed by national pitch rules.
In 2015 Mr Justice Hogan determined that the re-opened stadium did not amount to a new racecourse for the purpose of the pitch rules and such a contribution could not be exacted from those bookies with established seniority.
While the bookies claimed hundreds of thousands in lost profits as a result of being unable to operate the judge only allowed them to recover full losses sustained in the first 12 months from when the stadium re-opened in 2007.
He then applied an 80% reduction for subsequent years because of their failure to mitigate the loss by taking up the pitch.
He said at the time that he was doing so in order to reflect “the fact there was continuing fault on both sides.”
He also further reduced Mr Hughes’ damages by 20% because he was one of a number of people who participated in an illegal boycott of the re-opened stadium.
A decision on the appeal is due tomorrow.
