French pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus has lodged an appeal against the decision to hold a new tender process for the rights to the Top 14 rugby union league, according to the BFM Business website.
BFM Business said that the appeal is the final option available to Canal Plus as the broadcaster attempts to prevent a new rights process being undertaken for the top division of French rugby.
The Court of Appeal in Paris last month dismissed an appeal by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby and Canal Plus over the decision to suspend their rights deal for the Top 14.
The LNR and Canal Plus appealed against an order by the Autorité de la Concurrence, the French competition authority, to suspend the rights deal and hold a new tender process for the Top 14.
The authority said that the league must hold a new tender process at the end of the current 2014-15 season, one year into Canal Plus’s five-year deal for the Top 14, from 2014-15 to 2018-19.
However, the court postponed the deadline for the league to carry out the tender process. The competition authority originally ordered the league to hold the sales process by January 31, but the court said that the league should carry out the tender “as soon as possible and no later than March 31, 2015.”
In January, Canal Plus was awarded the rights just days after the league said that it had postponed a rights tender after becoming the subject of legal action by the same broadcaster. In March, pay-television rival beIN Sports submitted a formal complaint to the regulator, having claimed that January’s agreement had not followed “a transparent procedure to ensure fair competition.”
BFM Business said that a new tender process would result in Canal Plus facing stiff competition for the rights from beIN Sports and Eurosport France, the French arm of pan-regional broadcaster Eurosport.