Light & Wonder has stated it does not foresee any future operational issues surrounding the ongoing legal battle with Aristocrat over allegations of trade secret misappropriation.
Last September, Australia-based Aristocrat won a preliminary court case against Light & Wonder that prevented the firm from selling, leasing or “other commercialisation” of the slot game Dragon Train after the initial complaint was filed in February.
Aristocrat alleged Dragon Train was created using trade secrets and the intellectual property of Aristocrat’s Dragon Link series, which debuted in 2017.
Last month, a second Light & Wonder slots title, Jewel of the Dragon, was pulled after Aristocrat amended its initial court complaint to include the game.
Light & Wonder CEO Matt Wilson added at the time that the supplier had scrapped a yet to be released game “out of an abundance of caution”.
When asked for an update at the firm’s Investor Day held on Tuesday, 20 May, Wilson deferred to chief legal officer James Sottile who claimed that following a “comprehensive review”, there were no Light & Wonder titles using Aristocrat math.
Sottile said: “We announced the results of a comprehensive review of all hold and spin games released from 2015 right through to the present.
“What our external experts told us is that they found no evidence of any further use of Aristocrat math in any of the games that they reviewed.
“What that tells us is that we don’t have any systemic IP issues here and what that means is that we don’t foresee any further operational challenges arising from this litigation.
“This litigation going to be resolved in courts and that’s where it belongs.”
With claims Aristocrat has continued to investigate Light & Wonder, Sottile added that the supplier is focused on creating games for its markets and will leave the legal issues for the court.
He commented: “Aristocrat has recently said on a couple of occasions that they are continuing an investigation into whether there’s been any use of their claimed trade secrets in any other games.
“With the review I’ve just described behind us, what we’re focused on is continuing to build great games, to further extend our market-leading positions across all of our businesses and to enter new markets. We’ll leave the litigation for the courts to deal with.”
On its H1 2025 analyst call, CEO Trevor Croker claimed it was “clear” that Light & Wonder were not playing by the rules and that the supplier was “pleased” with how litigation was progressing in both North America and Australia.
He said: “Defending our intellectual property in all markets is critical and Aristocrat takes a rigorous proactive approach to ensure the everyone competes fairly on a level playing field.
“It’s clear to us from the litigation with Light & Wonder that they have not played by the rules, evident in a number of employees being terminated.
“We are pleased with how the litigation is progressing in both the US and Australia, including the US court’s decision to issue a preliminary injunction with respect to Dragon Train.
“Other positive developments include the undertakings that Light & Wonder provided in Australia obligating to cease commercialisation of Jewel of the Dragon following our amended US complaint identifying that game as the product for trade secret misappropriation.
“In relation to statements that Light & Wonder has undertaken a broad third-party audit of its hold and spin games, our external counsel has not been provided with the math information used for this review.
“So we haven’t been able to conduct our own legal process, and we don’t intend to rely on the purported conclusions of this audit.
“This audit was conducted by the same person Light & Wonder has been using as a paid expert witness in the US litigation, including during the preliminary injunction proceedings.
“Our external counsel is continuing to investigate the extent to which our trade secrets were used to develop other Light & Wonder games.”
Amid the court battle, Aristocrat settled with its former employee Dinh Toan Tran after he allegedly stole 6,800 sensitive files, including trade secrets, and moved to Light & Wonder.
Light & Wonder also dismissed the designer of Dragon Train following the court case.
The post Light & Wonder foresees no further “operational challenges” regarding Aristocrat litigation first appeared on EGR Intel.
Chief legal officer James Sottile is confident legal issues are behind the supplier after “comprehensive review” found no additional evidence of game misappropriation
The post Light & Wonder foresees no further “operational challenges” regarding Aristocrat litigation first appeared on EGR Intel.