Camelot to take commission to court

UK National Lottery operator Camelot will launch a suit against the Gambling Commission this week, claiming that it broke the law by deciding that Czech billionaire Karel Komarek is a preferred candidate to take over.

According to The Sunday Telegraph yesterday, Camelot will this week issue legal proceedings against the commission, promising a judicial review as well as a High Court procurement challenge.

The newspaper suspects that Camelot will allege that the commission changed the rules after Camelot came out on top in a scoring system designed to measure bids.

“A risk factor discount of up to 15 per cent was due to be applied to financial projections by the bidders,” said the newspaper. “Camelot is expected to claim that a discount was initially applied by the regulator, but later changed to zero in the final adjudication.”

This, said the newspaper proved to be crucial because the financial projected lodged by Allwyn, Komarek’s UK gambling group, projected raising £38bn for good causes, much more than was proposed by Camelot.