Awards to three bookmakers ranging between €23,000 and €48,000 emerging from a dispute over the loss of betting ring pitches at Dundalk Stadium were overturned by the Court of Appeal yesterday afternoon.
In early 2015 the three bookmakers were awarded a total of €113,789 by the High Court after the court determined that their contracts had been breached following the €35 million redevelopment of the racecourse as an all-weather track in 2007.
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 sued the racecourse for breach of contract. The other cases were put on hold after Dundalk Stadium appealed the High Court’s decision with that appeal proving successful yesterday.
The dispute arose when the bookies claimed 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.
The bookmakers had boycotted the venue and were claiming hundreds of thousands in lost profits during the absence from the new track, but Judge Hogan allowed them recover losses only for the first 12 months from the 2007 reopening.
The Court of Appeal, made up of Justices Finlay Geoghegan, Michael Peart and Mary Irvine, ruled the High Court was correct in saying the new Dundalk was the same racecourse with regard to pitch rules and they had no entitlement to charge the bookmakers €8,000 to get pitches.
However, the matters that the High Court judge relied on to support the conclusion that the bookmakers acted reasonably in refusing to agree to stand at Dundalk, under the new 2007 terms, were “either not supported by the evidence or were matters to which he ought to have had regard”.
In those circumstances, it was considering afresh the whole question of their failure to mitigate their losses while mindful of the facts found by the High Court.
The Court of Appeal found that if the bookmakers had taken up the pitches they would have suffered no loss by reason of the breach of pitch rules by Dundalk Racing, except for the payment of the €8,000 contribution, for which they could have later sued.
Therefore, the awarding of damages to the three bookmakers was overturned.
The court dismissed Dundalk Stadium’s appeal against the failure to award damages over the unlawful boycott. The racecourse claimed the boycott reduced the number of customers by around 100 and led to a gross loss of €408,000 up to February 2014.
The court also dismissed a cross-appeal by Mr O’Hare over the refusal of the High Court to grant him an injunction directing the racecourse to allocate him the pitch he would have been entitled to in 2007 in accordance with seniority under the pitch rules.
