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The Competition Tribunal on Wednesday heard an interim relief application from gambling group Lottoland SA, which is seeking an order that Google Ireland and Google South Africa allow it to access the tech giant's advertising service platform.
Lottoland, a licensed bookmaker, alleges that Google terminated its access to Google's advertising services without any legitimate justification and "singled it out" while allowing other gambling entities to advertise.
The company has submitted "an abuse of dominance" complaint to the Competition Commission, while seeking at least six months' interim relief, or until the commission makes a ruling on its case.
Lottoland provides fixed-odds betting, or in the case of lotteries, a bet on the likelihood that the numbers you selected might be drawn. Google maintained Lottoland's landing page - or standalone page created for marketing - violated its internal policies, and potentially legislation.
This includes that fixed-odds bets on National Lotteries could contravene the National Lotteries Act, a matter that has been before SA's courts.
Arguments on Wednesday centred on the "theory of harm", related to anti-competitive behaviour, with Michelle le Roux, SC, for Google, arguing that the tech group had no financial incentive to bar Lottoland, and even had expressed regret about not being able to continue doing business with that client. She also disagreed that any cases of delayed implementation of the group's policies should be interpreted as prejudice to Lottoland, as the tech giant had "millions" of cases to address.
Paul Farlam, SC, for Lottoland, however, argued that the application had only been launched after the company became aware of other cases of it allowing the advertising of competitors, and Google acted anti-competitively.
The Lottoland group is based in Gibraltar, with operations in Italy, the UK, Ireland and SA.
The matter was adjourned, with parties now awaiting the verdict.
