Citing alleged inaction against the service, Saudi Arabia was placed on intellectual property watchlists by the United States Trade Representative and European Union.

In turn, the Saudi government accused beIN Sports of engaging in anti-competitive behaviour and of participating in a smear campaign against the Kingdom with its sister company Al Jazeera.

Issues surrounding beoutQ also impacted a bid by the Saudi Public Investment Fund to acquire Premier League club Newcastle United.

[13] In September 2018 during legal proceedings in the United States, beIN linked the beoutQ website to Saudi businessman Raed Khusheim, who is chief executive officer of UAE-based television provider Selevision.

Their firmware contained several levels of geolocation checks in order to prevent the boxes from being activated outside of Saudi Arabia, including over-the-air programming during its first-time setup that required access to beoutQ's satellite signal.

[8] Tim Fernholz of Quartz described Saudi Arabia's alleged involvement in beoutQ as an example of the country's "no-holds-barred attitude" in its dispute with Qatar, and as an effort to undermine Al Jazeera's "soft power".

The rights would be acquired by the free-to-air satellite channel MBC Action, whose parent company Middle East Broadcasting Center is majority-owned by the Saudi government.

[27] In October 2019 at the Leaders Week conference in London, beIN Media Group CEO Yousef Al-Obaidly predicted that the market for sports broadcast rights could crash if rightsholders did not take enough steps to prevent the unauthorised redistribution of their content.

[28] On 21 September 2019, the Al Jazeera program What Lies Beneath broadcast an investigative report alleging that beoutQ's operations were based in Riyadh and tied to the service providers Selevision and Shammas.

It also claimed to have obtained evidence of plans to potentially move the transmission site to North Africa, and a leaked video showing the operation's headquarters and infrastructure.

[29] In November 2019, beIN Sports stated that it was "actively reconsidering" its relationship with the Lega Serie A over its agreement to host editions of the Supercoppa Italiana in Saudi Arabia.

[33][34] A bid led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) to acquire Premier League club Newcastle United faced scrutiny due to beoutQ, among other factors.

Chief sports officer Richard Verow argued that piracy was crippling the market and reaffirmed that beIN would "only bid for rights at levels that make economic sense and have a value proposition".

[42] beIN Sports was fined US$2.6 million by the Saudi government on 21 August 2018 for violations of competition law, including forced bundling of its services with other unrelated channels.

[45] Stan McCoy, the EMEA president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), told The Hollywood Reporter that the MENA Anti-Piracy Coalition—which includes various broadcasters and service providers serving the region, including Arabsat—was "very much activated" on the issue of beoutQ, On 6 March 2019, the Coalition sent a letter to Arabsat demanding that it take a position and/or action towards beoutQ within two weeks, or else the Coalition would issue a public statement and begin the process of removing Arabsat from the group.

[8] That month, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) designated beoutQ as a "notorious market" in its annual Special 301 Report, citing that its equipment continued to be "widely available" and "generally unregulated" in Saudi Arabia, and that the country had not taken steps to address Arabsat's alleged role in the service.

Saudi Arabia was also added to the "Priority Watch List" for its failure to "address longstanding [intellectual property] concerns and the further deterioration of IP protection and enforcement within its borders".

[52] In June 2019, the Serie A's new CEO Luigi De Siervo stated that the league was taking legal action and would not rule out pulling Saudi Arabia's hosting rights to the Supercoppa (which had been negotiated by his predecessor Marco Brunelli).

[31] In July 2019, FIFA, the AFC, the Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, and UEFA issued a joint statement condemning beoutQ, urging Saudi authorities to take "swift and decisive action" against the broadcaster.

[53] On 2 October 2018, Qatar filed a case against Saudi Arabia with the World Trade Organization (WTO), citing violations of the TRIPS Agreement.

The same day, beIN Media Group also initiated an investment arbitration lawsuit against Saudi Arabia seeking US$1 billion in damages, citing beoutQ and other measures that had hindered its ability to do business in the country.

[56] The panel report found that beoutQ had received assistance from a Saudi-based content distributor, had used the facilities of Arabsat for transmission, and benefitted from promotion by government officials.

[66][67] The decision was reported to have been a concession in order to expedite approval of the Public Investment Fund's acquisition of Newcastle United, which was officially cleared by the Premier League the next day.