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Request date: 15 April 2021
This version was printed or saved on: 18 April 2024
Online version: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/about-us/freedomofinformation/financial-accounts-for-betindex-limited
Dear Sir / Madam,
This is a formal request for information.
Your organisation has recently confirmed to me that it holds copies of Bet Index Limited trading as Football Index (in administration) unaudited accounts for the two years ended 31 December 2018.
This is a formal request for a copy of those unaudited accounts and any other financial accounts held by the Gambling Commission for this company.
I believe the public interest favours disclosure following the financial collapse of Bet Index Limited under the Gambling Commission's regulatory watch.
Please confirm receipt of my FOI request and provide your reference number.
Dear Sir / Madam,
Thank you for your request which has been processed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) (opens in new tab)
In your email you have requested copies of the unaudited accounts and any other financial accounts held by the Gambling Commission for BetIndex Limited.
I can confirm that we do hold information falling within the scope of your request; including BetIndex Limited’s unaudited financial statements for the two years ended 31 December 2018. As previously stated, please note, this information is not currently available within the public domain.
The Commission is a regulatory body with licensing, compliance and enforcement functions. Through our regulatory activity, the Commission aims to protect consumers and the wider public, and to raise standards in the gambling industry. The Commission seeks to ensure, through its ongoing compliance work, that licensees remain suitable to hold a licence and that they conduct themselves in a way which is consistent with the licensing objectives, the requirements of the Gambling Act 2005 (opens in new tab), and the conditions of their licences and related codes of practice.
We release details of our enforcement activity through public statements which can be found on our website. The public statements will detail the nature of the failings by the operator and the amount of the fine or settlement. Further to this, the Commission also publishes a list of recent regulatory sanctions we have imposed on licence holders.
When we publish these statements and sanctions we take care to present as much information as possible to ensure that lessons can be learned by operators. However, we must also be careful not to reveal any information that could hinder our ability to conduct investigations or enable those we may investigate to avoid detection.
We encourage licensees to be as thorough and as detailed as possible when communicating and we expect licensees to work with us in an open and cooperative way and to inform us of anything we might need to be aware of in order to regulate effectively. They would not do this if they believed that the information they provided to us would be released and as a result, the quality of the information we receive would suffer. For these reasons the Commission does not ordinarily publish further details of information generated during investigations.
The Commission is of the view that any financial information that we do hold in relation to Bet Index, not otherwise in the public domain, is exempt from disclosure under section 31(g) FOIA and therefore will not be released.
For further explanation of this exemption please see the attached document entitled 'Explanation of the exemption (PDF)'.
If you are unhappy with the service you have received in relation to your Freedom of Information request you are entitled to an internal review of our decision. You should write to FOI Team, Gambling Commission, 4th floor, Victoria Square House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B2 4BP or by reply to this email.
Please note, internal review requests should be made within 40 working days of the initial response. Requests made outside this timeframe will not be processed.
If you are not content with the outcome of our review, you may then apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have already exhausted the review procedure provided by the Gambling Commission.
The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office (opens in a new tab), Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Information Management TeamDear Gambling Commission,
Thank you for responding to my FOI request. Unfortunately, the response is not satisfactory and so I am requesting an internal review.
The reasons are as follows:
The specific circumstances of this case include that this company, Bet Index Limited trading as Football Index, has collapsed into administration with the loss to many thousand consumers estimated to be over £50 million. This happened on the Gambling Commission's watch. There are clear societal benefits of understanding why the company collapsed, what the Gambling Commission knew about the financial condition of the company and what can be done to prevent reoccurence.
Should your response to my request for review also be not satisfactory then I will apply to the Information Commissioner for a decision.
Dear Sir,
Further to your Freedom of Information request dated 15 April 2021 which we responded to on the 14 May 2021, and your subsequent request for an internal review received on the 14 May 2021, we have now concluded our review and our findings are detailed as follows. This internal review was conducted by someone who was not involved in the processing of your original request and was of a more senior position.
Your request was for the following information:
Your organisation has recently confirmed to me that it holds copies of Bet Index Limited trading as Football Index (in administration) unaudited accounts for the two years ended 31 December 2018.
This is a formal request for a copy of those unaudited accounts and any other financial accounts held by the Gambling Commission for this company.
In our response we advised you that this information was exempt under S31 – Law Enforcement.
The Commission has commenced an investigation into BetIndex Ltd which is still ongoing. This information is used to inform the licence review and to disclose this information could undermine the regulatory activity that is being undertaken. It is in the interests of all parties that matters of concern to the Commission can be discussed openly and frankly with licensees and releasing this information into the public domain could impact on the outcome of the review which would ultimately impact on the public. Information we use to assess if regulatory action will be taken against a licence holder (whether a person or an organisation) is considered to be exempt under S31(2)(c). Providing this information could seriously impact on the Commission’s ability to fulfil its statutory functions.
The Commission feels that the disclosure of this information ‘would prejudice’ the regulatory functions of the Commission.
Section 31 (1)(g) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (opens in new tab) (‘law enforcement’) provides that information held by a public authority is exempt if its disclosure would or would be likely to prejudice the exercise of a public authority of its functions for any of the purposes specified in subsection 2. Therefore, on balance, the public interest is in favour of engaging the S31(2)(c) exemption when considering the impact upon the Commission’s ability to perform its regulatory functions during an investigation. In addition, once the investigation has concluded it is likely that we would engage S31(2)(d).
In conclusion, I uphold our original decision that the S31 exemption is engaged and it is not in the public interest to release the information.
If you are not content with the outcome of your review, you may apply directly to the Information Commissioner (ICO) for a decision. Generally, the ICO cannot make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the Gambling Commission. The ICO can be contacted at: The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
Dear REDACTED,
Re: The Gambling Commission v Information Commissioner’s Office and REDACTED (EA/2022/0015)
We write in respect of your request submitted on 15 April 2021 pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“FOIA”) for unaudited accounts for the two years ending 31 December 2018, and any other financial accounts held by the Commission for BetIndex Limited (“the Request”).
As you are aware, the Information Commissioner issued a Decision Notice dated 16 December 2021 in which he concluded that the exemption in section 31 of FOIA was engaged in respect of the Request but, whilst finely balanced, the public interest favoured disclosure. That Decision Notice is currently the subject of an appeal by the Commission before the First-Tier Tribunal in respect of which you have recently been added as a party.
The Commission maintains its position that it was correct to apply section 31 to the Request, in particular because the information requested was obtained as part of the Commission’s investigations and the Request was made at a time when the investigations and licence review were ongoing.
Further, the Commission maintains its position that the public interest balancing exercise at the time the Commission considered the Request was in favour of maintaining the exemption, in particular taking into account the importance for the Commission’s statutory objectives of being able to receive confidential information on a voluntary basis and to maintain that information.
The Commission therefore considers that the Decision Notice erred in concluding to the contrary, and the Commission notes that the Information Commissioner was prepared to concede the appeal on this basis. Accordingly, the Commission considers at the time this matter was considered, it was entitled to decline to provide the information sought in the Request.
However, the Commission has recently given further consideration to the information which is the subject of your Request and the ongoing appeal. The Commission has now decided to voluntarily disclose the information sought in your Request. In reaching this decision the Commission’s considerations include the nature of the information which is the subject of your request, the particular facts and circumstances relating to your request including the passage of time since your Request, and the likely impact of disclosure of the information at this point in time.
The relevant information which is held by the Commission which falls within the scope of the Request is attached to this letter, subject to limited redactions in relation to the names and signatures of certain individuals and entities which are contained in the documents.
For the avoidance of doubt, we reiterate that the Commission’s position remains that it was entitled to withhold the information which was the subject of your Request at the time this was considered by the Commission in April and May 2021. The Commission’s decision to disclose the information sought in your Request at this time should not be taken as setting any precedent as to the manner in relation to which the Commission will deal with other requests relating to BetIndex Limited or any other entity that is licenced or has previously applied for a licence from the Commission.
In light of the Commission’s decision to disclose the information sought in your Request, the Commission proposes to withdraw its appeal against the Decision Notice on the basis that the appeal is now academic.
Accordingly, we will shortly be writing to the Tribunal and the parties to provide confirmation of the Commission’s decision to disclose the information and inviting the Tribunal to agree to an order disposing of the appeal on the basis that it is now academic.
Dear REDACTED,
Re: The Gambling Commission v Information Commissioner’s Office and REDACTED (EA/2022/0015)
We write further to our letter dated 4 January 2023 in which we disclosed to you the information falling within the scope of your request dated 15 April 2021, subject to limited redactions, and further to your email of 4 January 2023 in response to our letter.
In your email you queried the basis of the limited redactions which had been applied by the Commission to the information disclosed to you. The Commission has given further consideration to the extent of the redactions initially applied to the information and the position is as follows.
As to the redactions in respect of the signatures of the directors, we note that you agree that it is appropriate for the Commission to redact these signatures on security grounds. Accordingly, we have maintained those redactions.
As regards the information relating to certain companies which had been redacted from the accounts (which you describe in your letter as “captions on the balance sheet and profit and loss information”), on reflection the Commission has decided that it is appropriate to disclose this information and these redactions have been removed. This information is now included in the disclosure attached to this letter.
As regards the names of the directors which are referred to within the documents, the Commission has decided that it is appropriate to disclose the names of the two directors, Mr Kelly and Mr Cole, whose identities as former directors of BetIndex Limited (“BetIndex”) at the relevant time are already in the public domain. However, the Commission does not consider it fair or appropriate to disclose the names of the other directors who are identified in the documents in circumstances where their names are not currently in the public domain nor are their names readily obtainable. Whilst your email asserts that the names of the directors can be obtained from the Jersey Financial Services Commission (“JFSC”), the Commission’s enquiries do not support this assertion. The Commission’s enquiries with the JFSC did not identify any of the other directors whose names are not already in the public domain as being directors of BetIndex at the material time.
We note your request was for accounting information, specifically the unaudited accounts for the two years ending 31 December 2018, and any other financial accounts held by the Commission for BetIndex. We have now disclosed this information to you. We do not consider that the Decision Notice issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office requires the Commission to disclose the names of directors who are referred to in the documents which contain the accounting information, in particular in circumstances where those individuals’ identities are not in the public domain and in respect of which, if a separate request was made for their names, an exemption under section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 would, in our view, be applicable. Accordingly, we have maintained our redactions in relation to the names of directors other than Mr Kelly and Mr Cole in these circumstances.
In your email dated 8 January 2023 you raise a concern that certain pages of the unaudited accounts from 2018 are missing from the information which has been proactively disclosed to you by the Commission. In particular, you refer to the fact that page 2 of the Accountant’s Report which is referred to on the contents page is missing.
I can confirm that no “Accountant’s Report” was provided to the Commission by BetIndex as part of the 2018 unaudited accounts notwithstanding that the contents page suggests this was included.
Accordingly, the Commission considers that it has now disclosed to you all the information which we hold which falls within the scope of your request. The Commission further considers that its proactive disclosure of the information attached to this letter complies with the terms of the Decision Notice issued by the Information Commissioner and in these circumstances its appeal in respect of the Decision Notice is academic.
We intend to write to the Tribunal and the Information Commissioner to update them as to the position and the information which we have disclosed to you, and we will of course copy you into that correspondence and we will identify what we consider to be appropriate next steps in relation to the outstanding litigation before the Tribunal.
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