ESL FACEIT Group (EFG) announced Monday that it has officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the International Games and Esports Tribunal (IGET). The deal was signed during the New Global Sports Conference (NGSC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Financial terms (if any) were not disclosed.
This MoU for a strategic partnership hopes to see EFG integrate the “IGET Model Clauses” for dispute resolution across all of the company’s owned and operated competitions. IGET was established by the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) in collaboration with the World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Center (WIPO AMC), to provide professional, and accessible “Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services.”
These services address a range of disputes that tend to crop up in the video games and esports industries including “integrity-related matters” (match fixing, and other gambling related issues, anti-doping, etc.) contractual issues, and intellectual property issues with stakeholders.
“We are pleased to be working with EFG to make specialist dispute resolution more accessible in esports,” said Stephen Hanna, executive director of the International Games and Esports Tribunal. “This MoU reflects a shared commitment to fairness and efficiency, and we look forward to supporting EFG as it progressively integrates IGET into its competitions.”
More details about what IGET does can be found at www.iget.gg.
EFG is owned by Savvy Games Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian government’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund. The company serves as the home of festival company DreamHack, esports platform FACEIT, and U.S. and U.K.-focused esports production company Esports Engine. EFG also runs the Esports World Cup, alongside the Esports World Cup Foundation, which operates through a grant from the PIF.