The Mercantile Court number 2 of Madrid has provisionally suspended the contest for the award of VAR services of the Spanish LaLiga summoned by the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) after admitting the judge to process the Mediapro request.
Both the audiovisual group and the RFEF itself confirmed in separate press releases the judicial decision that paralyzes the awarding of all lots in a contest that included VAR services for the three upcoming seasons plus an optional fourth.
The RFEF urges in its note to LaLiga to act in this regard: “Given the questioning made regarding the forecast of incorporating a semi-automatic offside detection system into the VAR, the RFEF understands that it would be practically impossible in practice to advance in the new contracting of VAR services without the League defining its position on the need to incorporate the aforementioned semi-automatic offside for next season. That is why it urges it to adopt that decision in good time”.
For its part, Mediapro highlights in its press release that the judge considers that the RFEF “has been able to have anti-competitive bidding rules to benefit a competitor and harm Mediapro, conditioning, in a narrow market with few agents, the award of some services (VAR) to the possibility of providing other accessory services (SAOT), with the same purpose of predicting the result of the contest”.
four seasons
The contest rules established that the Federation had to communicate next Tuesday the winners of the Spanish LaLiga VAR service for the next four seasons and, according to Mediapro’s request for precautionary measures, the content of said rules “was expressly aimed at granting the service to the company that currently provides it, clearly harming other providers and engaging in anti-competitive conduct and abuse of a dominant position, as stated in the court order”.
According to this same version, the head of the Madrid court “also appreciates indications of anti-competitive action in the weighting of the award criteria since ‘indicatively, the inadequate weighting of the criteria used is noted, the price component of the offer being irrelevant , especially when the weighting is carried out in relation to an inadequate criterion, such as experience'”.
Lawsuit for abuse of position
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Likewise, Mediapro announces that within the twenty-day period established by law, it will file a lawsuit against the Federation “for abuse of a dominant position and anti-competitive action” and recalls that this is the fourth “anti-competitive action” of the RFEF that denounces the audiovisual group “and they have all been backed by court decisions.
Finally, the complainant considers that after this new judicial decision the Federation should call another tender “with bases that allow all providers to compete on equal terms and without aiming to exclude Mediapro,” concludes the press release.
2023-04-21 21:23:01
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