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The Court of Appeal has ruled that English courts do not have jurisdiction over Playtech’s trade secrets and copyright infringement claims against Realtime SIA and its employee Igors Veliks, bringing an end to a legal dispute that began with allegations of corporate espionage in the live casino sector.
The judgment, handed down on November 21, 2025, by Lord Justice Arnold, Lord Justice Nugee, and Lady Justice Falk, reversed an earlier High Court decision by Justice Thompsell from January 2025 that had allowed the case to proceed in England and Wales.
Background of the Dispute
The controversy began in January 2024 when Ivans Ivanovs, a former senior product owner at OnAir Entertainment, made explosive allegations on LinkedIn claiming that OnAir had maintained illegal access to Playtech’s internal systems for two years. According to Ivanovs, his former colleague Igors Veliks retained access to Playtech’s systems after leaving his position at Euro Live Technologies, Playtech’s Latvian subsidiary, where he worked between October 2020 and July 2021.
Veliks moved to Realtime SIA in August 2021. Realtime operates the OnAir Entertainment live casino brand and is part of the Games Global group of companies, making it a direct commercial rival to Playtech in the online gambling games market.
The allegations suggested that Veliks used login credentials from his previous employment to access Playtech’s Horizon platform, which hosts both publicly released games and unreleased titles. This access allegedly gave OnAir advance knowledge of Playtech’s game roadmap, features, and strategic plans, sometimes up to six months before public release.
Playtech alleged that Veliks accessed the confidential information on Horizon after his employment terminated and that Realtime used this information to develop two games: Travel Fever and Diamond Rush Roulette. The company claimed this constituted misuse of trade secrets and industrial espionage.
Legal Proceedings and Initial Ruling
In May 2024, Playtech Software Limited and Euro Live Technologies SIA filed a Part 7 Copyright and design right claim in the UK High Court against Games Global Limited, Games Global Operations Limited, MT Realtime Live Ltd, Realtime SIA, and Igors Veliks. Playtech was represented by Linklaters LLP, while the defendants were represented by Cooley LLP, Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, and Trowers & Hamlins LLP.
By the time of the High Court hearing before Justice Thompsell in January 2025, Playtech had significantly narrowed its claims. The company abandoned its original contractual claims entirely and discontinued Euro Live Technologies’ participation in the lawsuit. The remaining claims focused solely on alleged equitable obligations of confidence owed to Playtech and a copyright infringement claim related to a logo used in one of Playtech’s games.
Justice Thompsell initially ruled in favor of allowing the case to proceed in English courts, finding there was a good arguable case that Veliks had breached confidence and that there was sufficient connection to UK jurisdiction. However, Realtime and Veliks challenged this decision, arguing that the English courts lacked proper jurisdiction over the matter.
Court of Appeal Decision
The Court of Appeal’s decision centered on the critical question of which law should apply to the trade secrets claims and whether England was the appropriate forum for the dispute.
The court examined the case under the Rome II Regulation, which governs the law applicable to non-contractual obligations in cross-border disputes. Under Article 4(1) of the regulation, the applicable law is determined by the country where direct damage occurs, not where indirect consequences happen or where the claimant is based.
Lord Justice Arnold, writing for the court, emphasized that Playtech’s case focused entirely on indirect consequences rather than direct damage. The company’s pleadings claimed that it suffered loss of licensing revenue in the UK as a result of the alleged misuse of trade secrets, but provided no evidence that either of the derivative games had been downloaded, accessed, or even made available to consumers in the UK.
“The mere fact that Playtech loses revenue in the UK is not sufficient for this purpose,” the judgment stated. The court found that on Playtech’s pleaded case, the only direct damage suffered was sustained in Latvia, where the alleged unauthorized access occurred and where the games were developed.
The court distinguished Playtech’s case from previous trade secrets litigation in Celgard v Senior, where actual importation and marketing of infringing goods in the UK established direct damage in that jurisdiction. In contrast, Playtech failed to demonstrate any market impact in the UK.
The Court of Appeal found that approximately 94% of the alleged unauthorized access to Horizon took place from IP addresses in Latvia, with no access occurring from the UK. Both Veliks and Realtime are based in Latvia, and Veliks’ employment contract with Euro Live was governed by Latvian law with an exclusive jurisdiction clause favoring Latvian courts.
Regarding the copyright claim, which involved an alleged screenshot of a Playtech game logo, the court held that even considered independently, Latvia was the appropriate forum. The screenshot was allegedly taken in Latvia, and the center of gravity of the dispute pointed to Latvian jurisdiction.
Industry Context and Reactions
Following the initial allegations in January 2024, OnAir Entertainment engaged an independent investigator to examine the claims. The company maintained that while an employee did retain access to Playtech’s demonstration environment, it was used solely for competitor analysis, which OnAir characterized as standard industry practice in the gaming sector.
“The investigation concluded that the individual utilized the system solely for competitor analysis, a standard industry practice within the iGaming sector,” an OnAir spokesperson stated at the time. “In light of these findings, OnAir Entertainment is confident that the access was not used for spying, copying, or any infringing activity in any manner.”
The case took another turn in October 2024 when OnAir’s own prosecution against Ivanovs in Latvia for allegedly disclosing trade secrets failed. A Riga City Court judge ruled that the information in question did not qualify as trade secrets under Latvian law.
Alex Sharples, Partner in the Commercial Disputes team at Trowers & Hamlins, which represented Veliks alongside Herbert Smith Freehills, commented on the significance of the ruling: “This is an important judgment for our client to correct the decision of the High Court in permitting a claim to proceed against our client here in England & Wales.”
Key Legal Principles
The Court of Appeal judgment establishes several important principles for trade secrets litigation in cross-border disputes. Claimants must demonstrate direct damage in the jurisdiction where they seek to bring claims, not merely indirect financial consequences such as lost revenue. The location where alleged misuse occurs and where competitive harm materializes is crucial for determining applicable law.
Evidence of actual market impact in the jurisdiction, such as downloads or access to infringing products, is necessary to establish direct damage. Contractual jurisdiction clauses and the center of gravity of disputes remain significant factors in forum determination, and courts will scrutinize whether claims genuinely engage English jurisdiction or whether foreign courts are more appropriate.
The ruling has implications for how international trade secrets disputes are handled in the gaming industry and beyond, particularly regarding jurisdiction and the burden of proof required to establish direct damage in a particular territory.
Source: Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
