Richard Desmond’s long-running campaign to overturn the award of the fourth National Lottery license ended in bitter defeat: the Supreme Court dismissed a £1.3 billion damages claim brought by the media tycoon against the Gambling Commission.
The lawsuit, brought by Desmond’s New Lottery Company along with its long-standing vehicle Northern & Shell, alleged that the regulator engaged in flawed competition in awarding the 10-year operating contract to Allwyn, the gambling group controlled by Czech billionaire Karel Komárek. Allwyn replaced Camelot, the license holder since the lottery’s launch in 1994, when the new agreement came into effect.
In a ruling that will reverberate across Whitehall, Westminster and the wider regulated gambling sector, Judge Joanna Smith found no basis for Desmond’s central allegations. “The plaintiffs have found no apparent error on the part of the Commission in their litigation,” she said. Neither Camelot nor Allwyn, she added, should have been excluded from the tender, Camelot because of an alleged official advantage, Allwyn because of an alleged conflict of interest. “The competition that was held to award the fourth license came to a lawful conclusion,” the judge concluded.
The plaintiffs remain defiant. A spokesman for Northern & Shell responded bluntly: “They won. We lost. We’re appealing. It’s not over yet.”
The judgment draws a line, at least for the time being, under one of the most economically important public procurement disputes in recent years. Industry observers had warned that a ruling against the Gambling Commission would have resulted in a compensation risk well beyond the £1.3 billion sought by Desmond’s camp, while casting a long shadow over the credibility of UK-regulated competitions generally. For an SME-heavy supplier base that relies on the charitable funds generated by the lottery, ongoing uncertainty over the license has been a growing problem.
The National Lottery remains one of the largest lotteries of its kind in the world. Since its launch three decades ago, players have donated more than £52 billion to more than 670,000 charitable causes across the UK, a funding pipeline that supports everything from grassroots sports clubs to heritage projects and small charities.
For Desmond, once owner of the Daily Express and OK! For the magazine, the ruling represents a significant setback in a crucial commercial battle following publication. Now an appeal is looming, but the commercial and reputational trend has now turned decisively against it.
