Share This Article
While EGR reports that the new EU’s internal market Commissioner, Michel Barnier, offered an hope for operators facing a battle against European gaming monopolies, the EU Advocate generals have issued two decisions that do not meet operators’ expectations of a big change in the EU approach towards the gaming sector.
The opinions related:
-
to the Swedish prohibition on promoting Internet gaming offered by operators that do not hold a Swedish gaming license: according to the Advocate General – who also mentioned the Bwin v Santa Casa case – such prohibitions were justified by the objective of fighting against fraud and criminality; and
-
to the Austrian legislation which reserves the operation of games of chance in gaming establishments exclusively to limited companies which have their seat in Austrian territory: the Adocate General in this circumstance held that such limitation is incompatible with freedom of establishment. To be honest, this opinion is not surprising and the new Italian licensing regime will comply with this view allowing licensees to be established in any EU Member State, as the same limitations prescribed by the Austrian model had been criticized several times before courts.
Will the approach taken recently by the European Court of Justice in Bwin v Santa Casa be confirmed by the final decisions on these disputes? Shall gaming operators be obliged to obtain a license in each country where they intend to offer their games? Or the election of the new Commissioner Barnier will really introduce a new approach from the European Commission.
If you want to the discuss the above, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.
(Visited 1 times, 1 visits today)
