A rival bidder yesterday managed to stall the renewal of Maltco’s lotteries licence.
Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon provisionally upheld a Betco Holdings Limited request for an injunction against the Lotteries and Gaming Authority and the Finance Ministry from assigning a concession agreement to Maltco.
Betco, which lost the bid to incumbent Maltco after the latter submitted a better financial offer, said the concession mentioned in the tender document granted exclusivity only on the Grand Lottery, Super 5 and Lotto. But the authority was now offering Maltco exclusivity on more games, it claimed.
It said it would suffer irremediable harm if the ministry’s Privatisation Unit or the LGA granted a licence which provided for exclusivity on games apart from those three.
In its application for a warrant of prohibitory injunction, Betco said the Privatisation Unit had verbally informed both bidders that “discussions with the bidder chosen on the basis of the financial offer, were going to be limited and that there were going to be no negotiations”.
It claimed that discussions were under way between the LGA and Maltco “so that exclusivity is extended to other games which were not mentioned in the call for tenders”.
Betco said this was not permissible and that the offer made was on the basis of what was mentioned in the tender document. Changing the conditions of the tender violated the principles of equality and transparency.
Describing this extension as “abusive and illegal”, the company requested the court to stop the LGA and the Finance Ministry from continuing their discussions with Maltco Lotteries or from reaching any form of agreement or concession over lotteries in Malta.
In March, Maltco Lotteries was chosen as the preferred bidder to operate the national lottery until 2022.
The company, which has run the lottery since 2004, submitted a bid of €39.1 million while Betco Holdings Limited, as part of a consortium with Gtech Global Services Corporation, submitted a tender of €36.2 million.
The first hearing on this warrant request will be held on May 31.