Qatari media giant beIN seeks $1 billion from Saudi Arabia for TV ‘piracy’
Qatari sports broadcasting giant beIN Media Group has launched legal action against Saudi Arabia for Saudi “state-sponsored broadcast piracy” of sporting events, demanding over $1 billion in damages.
BeIN, which was established by Qatari flagship international newscaster Al Jazeera in 2012, holds the exclusive rights to broadcast European and international championship tournaments across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
However, the giant network has been banned from broadcasting in Saudi Arabia in June last year, when Riyadh, along with three of its regional allies, imposed a tight blockade against neighboring Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism, an allegation strongly denied by Doha.
Since then, sporting events for which beIN holds exclusive rights to the MENA region have been widely broadcast and streamed online in Saudi Arabia through a pirate channel, known as beoutQ, a 10-channel system broadcasting to the MENA region on Riyadh-based satellite provider ArabSat. However, the Saudi Arabia and ArabSat have both denied any links with the beoutQ.
In a statement released by the beIN on Monday, Saudi Arabia was accused of "flagrantly" breaching international law and norms and “actively supporting” the beoutQ.
“As a result of the arbitrary and discriminatory measures implemented by Saudi Arabia specifically against beIN – which have also included baseless competition law proceedings, ongoing harassment of beIN employees and disruption of major beIN sporting events – beIN has suffered damages in excess of US$1 billion, which continue to increase with each passing day,” the statement said.
The beIN also said that it would seek full compensation for damages under an Organization of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) agreement on the protection of investments among member states and using United Nation’s arbitration rules.
Meanwhile, Qatar’s ministry of economy and commerce said in a separate statement that Doha had launched a legal action at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, accusing Saudi Arabia of “violating” intellectual property rights, over beIN.
Back in August, BeIN said that it had “irrefutable evidence” that Riyadh and ArabSat were involved in the broadcast of the beoutQ. “On a daily basis it is carrying out, in broad daylight, a mass-scale theft of highly valuable intellectual property rights,” said beIN’s director of legal affairs, Sophie Jordan, at the time.
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