David Zeffman

Practice Areas

David has been one of the leading lawyers in the UK media sector for over 30 years and has extensive experience providing strategic, commercial and regulatory advice to clients in the gambling, sport and television sectors. He has been involved in many of the major transactions that have taken place in these sectors, including the launch of several television channels and the sale of media rights to some of the world's biggest sporting competitions.

Professional Memberships

Member - International Masters of Gaming Law.

Work Highlights

Gambling:

Gamesys on a range of commercial, regulatory and corporate matters including: the sale of its JackpotJoy and other brands to Intertain for an initial payment of GBP 425.8m; on its c.£490m sale to JPJ Group plc and pre-sale carve out of its sports betting and games content business, advising on its online gaming partnership with the New Jersey casino Tropicana; and the acquisition of Virgin Games.

The Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association on its legal challenges to the UK Government’s reform of the taxation of remote gambling services and to the introduction of place of consumption licensing and regulation in Britain.

Sports Entertainment Acquisition Corp on multi-jurisdictional regulatory reviews and due diligence in support of its agreement to combine with Super Group, the parent company of leading global online sports betting and gaming businesses Betway and Spin, valuing the combined group at USD 4.75bn.

Sport:

The England and Wales Cricket Board on its GBP 1.1bn sale of the UK media rights to English cricket from 2020-2025.

The International Cricket Council on its global media rights tender, bidding and evaluation process for 18 tournaments between 2015 and 2023.

The Government on the future funding of British horseracing following the decision of the European Court of Justice in the William Hill v BHB database rights case.

FIFA on the worldwide sale of media rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups.

Setanta Sports, SingTel, Sky Italia, Dentsu and many others on their acquisition of rights to broadcast Premier League football.

TV:

The launch and/or subsequent operations of many television channels since the launch of satellite television in the 1980s including MTV Europe, VH1, FilmFour, E4, AtTheRaces, Bloomberg and Eurosport.

The set up, funding, launch and all activities of the DTT pay television platform Top Up TV.

Education