The Court of Appeal in Paris has dismissed an appeal by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby and pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus over the decision to suspend their rights deal for the Top 14 rugby union league.
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.”
The league said that it would “consider the follow-up to this decision,” while beIN Sports said it was a “decision that makes sense.”