Court rules in favour of Paradise Entertainment

SHFL Entertainment (Asia) Ltd had an appeal rejected after the Court of Second Instance here ruled against an injunction filed against Paradise Entertainment Ltd. SHFL – formerly known as Shuffle Master – has been in a long and at times bitter trade dispute with a Macau-based company called LT Game Ltd and its Hong Kong-listed parent company Paradise Entertainment Ltd. It concerns a patent claimed in Macau by L T Game for technology in a multi-game electronic table game product featuring a live dealer. Bally Technologies Inc last year acquired SHFL Asia’s parent company SHFL Entertainment Inc. In October 2012, a counter litigation by Shuffle Master Asia Ltd, a unit of SHFL, sought to prevent Paradise and its units from claiming a monopoly in Macau on the relevant technology. A month after the injunction, Macau’s lower court dismissed the case, and SHFL filed an appeal with the Court of Second Instance. Now the Court of Second Instance has also dismissed SHFL’s appeal. In a January 2013 filing, Paradise stated: ‘The company and the directors further believe that the [Shuffle Master’s] Macau injunction was initiated as one more phase of a litigation tactic to pressurise the Group, as a result of the infringement proceedings originally filed by Mr Jay Chun, LT Game and Natural Noble, against, inter alia, Shuffle Master, for infringements of Macau Patent I/380 and Macau Patent I/150.’