A court yesterday dismissed a claim by a Maltese remote gaming company that a circular sent to traders, saying its activities were illegal, had broken the law.

ZEturf Ltd told the court it offered the possibility to the world to participate in race horse gaming in France through the internet. In June 2006, GIE Pari Mutuel Urbain, a French monopoly in the horse racing gaming industry, sent letters through its French lawyers to Vodafone Malta Ltd, Bell Med Ltd and Computer Aided Technology Ltd informing them the services provided by ZEturf were illegal. The companies were ordered not to provide any services to ZEturf.

ZEturf asked the court to declare the letters violated Maltese law governing unlawful competition.

Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco noted that two judgments by the French courts had declared that ZEturg’s activities in this field violated French law. According to GIE PMU, the letters were meant to support those judgments. The fact that ZEturf was licensed to carry out operations in Malta did not mean a foreign court did not have the right to deem such operations illegal.

Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco said while the Commercial Code prohibited the spreading of news that could cause harm to a trader’s competitors, the letters had not been sent in an indiscriminate manner, nor had they been sent to all of ZEturf’s clients. On the contrary, the letters stated that whoever acted as a provider to ZEturf would be violating French law in terms of two French judgments.

The court, therefore, upheld GIE PMU’s pleas and dismissed ZEturf’s suit.