Court of Appeal Overturns Spribe's May Win, Ruling English Law Decides the Effect of Georgia's Aviator Judgments

Three appeal judges have unanimously reversed the High Court on which law decides whether Georgian rulings stop Spribe reopening copyright ownership and copying in London. It is a procedural win for Aviator LLC, not a finding of infringement, and whether the Georgian rulings bind the English court is still undecided.

• The Court of Appeal of England and Wales allowed an appeal by Aviator LLC and two Malta-based Aviator Studio companies against Spribe OÜ on 2 October, in a unanimous judgment given by Lord Justice Arnold
• It held that English law, as the law of the court hearing the case, decides whether judgments of the Georgian courts create an issue estoppel, reversing the May 2026 High Court ruling in Spribe's favour that the law of each country where copyright protection is claimed should decide it
• The court did not decide whether any issue estoppel actually arises from the Georgian decisions, nor whether Spribe's Aviator artwork infringes copyright; those questions remain for the High Court
• Aviator says the Georgian proceedings, which ended with Spribe losing an appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia, settle the questions of copyright subsistence, ownership and copying; Spribe disputes that
• The London ruling lands as the dispute splits by jurisdiction, with Spribe ahead in Malta and Curaçao and behind in Georgia and Brazil, where a Pernambuco court rejected all its claims against Betnacional in September

The Court of Appeal Says the Effect of a Foreign Judgment Is a Question for the Forum

The Court of Appeal handed down Aviator LLC and others v Spribe OÜ, [2026] EWCA Civ 1224, on 2 October, ten days after a hearing on 22 September. The appellants are Aviator LLC, a Georgian company, and Aviator Studio Limited and Aviator Studio Holding Limited, both incorporated in Malta; the respondent is Spribe OÜ, the Estonian developer of the Aviator crash game. Lord Justice Arnold gave the judgment, with which Lord Justice Miles and Lady Justice King agreed.

The appeal concerned one question of law. Aviator argued that whether the Georgian judgments create an issue estoppel, the doctrine that stops a party relitigating a point already decided against it, is governed by English law as the law of the forum. Spribe argued that Article 8(1) of the Rome II Regulation on non-contractual obligations, which remains part of UK law after Brexit, required the court to apply the law of each country for which copyright protection is claimed. On 22 May, deputy High Court judge Michael Tappin KC, now Mr Justice Tappin, agreed with Spribe.

Arnold LJ reached the opposite conclusion, noting that the appeal court had heard wider argument than the judge. Issue estoppel, he held, is not a doctrine of copyright law but a general rule about the effect of a prior judgment, concerned with how a dispute is adjudicated rather than with the parties' substantive rights. It therefore falls outside the Rome II Regulation altogether or, failing that, within its exclusion for evidence and procedure. Spribe's approach, he added, would have applied different laws to the same issue depending on the cause of action. The appeal was allowed.

What the Georgian Courts Decided, and What Is Still Open

According to the judgment, Aviator LLC and Spribe were parties to proceedings in Georgia in which Aviator successfully challenged the validity of a Georgian trade mark registered by Spribe, on the ground that its use would infringe Aviator's copyright in its aircraft logo. Spribe appealed unsuccessfully to the Supreme Court of Georgia, which gave a ruling on 20 May 2025 and a decision on 26 March 2026. Aviator says those decisions prevent Spribe from disputing subsistence and ownership of the copyright and copying of a substantial part of it. Spribe disputes this.

The ruling does not resolve that. Under English law, the judgment notes, a foreign judgment creates an issue estoppel only if it is entitled to recognition, being given by a court with jurisdiction and final and conclusive on the merits, and if the parties and the issue are the same. Those requirements have not been tested. Nor has infringement: Aviator alleges that artwork produced in June 2019 by the agency Bambuk Design Studio, and used by Spribe, copied its logo, and Spribe says its artwork was independently designed.

The case is large. Aviator claims infringement of copyright in the UK, Gibraltar and every Berne Convention country other than Georgia, 181 other countries according to One Essex Court, whose barristers acted for Aviator in the High Court, and says Spribe's UK trade marks are invalid. Spribe counterclaims for trade mark infringement and passing off over Aviator's planned UK crash game, and holds an interim injunction stopping that launch pending trial. Aviator's defence alleges Spribe's UK trade ran without the appropriate Gambling Commission licence; the Commission suspended Spribe's licence on 30 October 2025 over hosting non-compliance and lifted the suspension on 30 March 2026, according to its notice.

In May the High Court also refused Aviator an early trial on copyright ownership, and adjourned the question of a preliminary trial on whether issue estoppels arise. The Court of Appeal judgment does not set out next steps or say whether Spribe will seek to go to the Supreme Court.

The Ruling Moves the Estoppel Fight Onto Ground Aviator Chose

On Spribe's approach, the Georgian decisions would have been tested against the preclusion rules of each country in the claim; Spribe had pleaded, for example, that Czech law requires the same parties, cause of action and subject matter, a narrower test than English issue estoppel. The appeal court has replaced that with one set of English rules. It also records that Spribe has recently agreed that foreign copyright laws may be presumed to match UK law. Together, those points make a claim spanning much of the world look far more like a single English case, with less foreign-law evidence and fewer ways for the Georgian findings to fall away country by country.

It Is Still Not a Finding That Georgia Settles Anything

The English test is demanding. The Georgian case was a trade mark invalidity action, and the judgment names only Aviator LLC and Spribe as its parties, so the court will have to decide whether the Maltese companies can rely on it and whether an issue decided about a Georgian registration is the same as copyright infringement in the UK and elsewhere. English law also allows an exception where an estoppel would cause injustice. Aviator has won the right to argue on its preferred terms, not the argument itself.

The Splits Across Jurisdictions Are Widening, Not Narrowing

Aviator is a substantial asset: Spribe's own figures put it at about 60 million monthly active players in 2025 and 400,000 bets a minute, according to BNLData, figures cited in the prosecution Spribe faces in Brasília. The courts are pulling in different directions. Georgia and Brazil's trade mark rulings have gone Aviator's way; Malta ordered Aviator Studio to stop using the name in the EU, and a Curaçao court cancelled two Aviator LLC marks in a case Aviator LLC did not attend, according to Next.io. England is where the Georgian findings could be carried into a multi-country copyright claim, which is why a procedural point mattered so much to both sides.

Aviator LLC has reversed its May setback in London, but on the governing law rather than on the merits. Whether the Georgian rulings bind Spribe in London is now a question of English law, and it has not yet been answered.