BEIN SEEKS US$1B DAMAGES
Qatar TV network claims it was ‘unlawfully driven out’ of Saudi Arabia market
QATAR’S BeIN Sports network began legal actions against Saudi Arabia on Monday, seeking US$1 billion (RM4.14 billion) in damages over allegations of pirated sports broadcasts, the latest escalation in a spat that has seen the Gulf Arab neighbours sever diplomatic and trade ties.
The tussle over television rights escalated before this year’s soccer World Cup began in Russia, as the two sides accused each other of bad faith over a deal covering a large chunk of the tournament’s matches.
BeIN Sports said it had lodged an international investment arbitration case against Saudi Arabia, contending that it had been “unlawfully driven out of the Saudi market”.
The state of Qatar also filed a separate case on Monday with the World Trade Organisation in Geneva claiming that Saudi Arabia had violated the organisation’s intellectual property rights agreement.
The two countries have been locked in a broader political standoff for more than a year. Saudi Arabia and three of its allies severed diplomatic, trade and transport links with Qatar in June last year, accusing the gasrich peninsula of sponsoring terrorism and meddling in their internal affairs.
Qatar, which is set to host soccer’s World Cup in 2022, has denied those allegations and says the boycott is an attempt to subvert its sovereignty.
The spat spilled into sports broadcasting rights with the mysterious emergence of a pirated channel called beoutQ.
BeoutQ appeared after the devices used to broadcast beIN Sports were banned from import to Saudi Arabia. It broadcasts the same games and commentary as beIN Sports, complete with a faint beIN logo that floats across the screen. Promotional materials for BeoutQ say it’s backed by Colombian, Cuban and Middle Eastern investors.
Qatar alleges that Saudi Arabia is behind the pirated broadcasts, which are interspersed on beoutQ with anti-Qatar content. Saudi Arabia has denied that it has anything to do with the channel and said it had been fighting beoutQ by confiscating devices used to stream it.
BeoutQ devices were widely available in Saudi Arabia in the months leading to the World Cup, and it’s common to find the channel broadcasting sports in restaurants and cafes.
In the arbitration case, beIN sports alleges that Saudi Arabia “initiated a series of abusive measures specifically targeting” the company in order to force it out of the Saudi market, revoking beIN’s legal right to operate, banning the import of beIN set-top boxes, suspending all monetary transactions with beIN and blocking its website.
“BeIN has suffered damages in excess of US$1 billion, which continue to increase with each passing day,” said the company.
Meanwhile, beoutQ has “created a plague of piracy,” said Sophie Jordan, beIN Media Group’s general counsel.