Football Dataco Ltd & Ors v Yahoo! UK Ltd

Lord Justice Longmore :

1. The order of the court will be as far as the declaration is concerned that we will say reference should be to, instead of the fixture lists, the EU fixture lists and otherwise we reject the arguments on behalf of the claimants.

2. As far as the publicity order is concerned, there will be a publicity order. It will be for one month only. It is to be on the websites of the first and third and sixth claimants, by which we mean Football Dataco Limited, Football League Limited and PA Sport UK Limited. It may be by link only from the home page, but instead of the words entitling the link in paragraph 9 of the order "Fixtures -- Court of Justice Judgment", it will be "No EU Rights in Fixtures Lists -- Court of Justice Judgment".

3. As far as the costs are concerned, we think that Mr Mellor's argument for the claimants involves too much slicing. The issue of intellectual creation was in our judgment part and parcel of the issues rightly before the learned judge and we will make no special order. The defendants are to have their costs of all these proceedings.

4. As far as interest is concerned we think that should be at the commercial rate, not the judgment rate, which we understand to be one per cent above base. And we think that therefore there should be an interim payment of approximately half of the costs claimed, which I take for this purpose from paragraph 95 of Mr Stevens's witness statement, where it is said that there are £593,520, so we will make an interim payment order of £290,000.

5. We hope that covers the matters raised. We hope that junior counsel will be able to draft an order that is put before the associate and we ask, expecting the answer ‘no’, whether any further reasoning is required by way of a reasoned explanation of our judgment. [Counsel agreed] Order : Appeals 1381 and 1382 dismissed; appeals 1389 and 1483 allowed