LONDON -- Aviator LLC issued a statement clarifying the nature and scope of a recent UK court ruling following public statements made by SPRIBE OU regarding interim injunction proceedings.

According to Nikoloz Gogilidze, legal representative for Aviator LLC, the recent court order was an interim injunction with limited scope and commercial impact.

Gogilidze highlights the key points of the proceedings, which appear to have been mischaracterized in some media reports.

Nature of the Court Order: The ruling represents an interim injunction granted at a preliminary procedural stage, not a final determination on the merits of the underlying dispute. Such orders are designed to maintain the status quo pending full trial proceedings.

Commercial Impact: The injunction has no practical effect as neither Aviator LLC nor its IP rights licensee had any existing plans to enter the UK market at this time. The company has not applied for the required UK Gambling Commission gaming license, a process that typically takes approximately one year to complete.

Scope of Restrictions: The court rejected several requests made by SPRIBE OU, including attempts to prevent Aviator LLC from making public statements about its intellectual property rights. Five of the eight relief requests initially sought by SPRIBE OU were withdrawn during the proceedings. Those five reliefs were: Distributing any emails or press releases in the UK (which Aviator LLC wasn’t doing in any event); Making any statements - public or private - asserting Aviator LLC’s ownership of the Aviator IP; Stating that SPRIBE OU isn’t the rightful owner of said IP; Posting any of above-mentioned statements on the www.aviator.studio website.

The UK dispute was initiated by Aviator LLC in late 2024, following successful proceedings in Georgia (Case No. 2/1413-24). In the Georgian case, courts including the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled in favor of Aviator LLC on copyright infringement and bad faith trademark registration claims.

The UK proceedings are based on similar legal grounds, specifically allegations of bad faith trademark registration and copyright infringement relating to SPRIBE OU's UK trademarks.

As is standard practice, SPRIBE OU was required to provide an undertaking to compensate Aviator LLC for any damages if the interim injunction is later determined to have been wrongly granted. The preliminary injunction does not prevent Aviator LLC from applying for a UK gambling license.

“The key point to understand at this juncture is that the UK proceedings are likely to conclude before any licence application is processed, rendering the interim injunction commercially irrelevant,” says Gogilidze. “Importantly, however, the preliminary injunction expressly does not prevent Aviator LLC or its licensee from applying for a gambling licence in the United Kingdom - unfortunately this appears to have been mischaracterized in some media reports.”

The parties are engaged in parallel proceedings in multiple jurisdictions, with the UK case representing one aspect of the broader intellectual property dispute.

Aviator LLC expects to continue pursuing its claims through the appropriate legal channels across relevant jurisdictions. The company remains focused on protecting what it considers to be its legitimate intellectual property rights, and rejects efforts by other parties aimed at misleading the industry with regard to the substance of status quo court orders.

“We look forward to presenting the merits of our claim in the UK as well as other markets, and we remain confident of our ultimate success in this matter,” Gogilidze said.