EU Justice Court’s stance on gambling law backed by EGBA

The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) has backed the European Court in its latest statement on international gambling law.

According to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), all national gambling policies produced by EU members must be communicated with the European Commission (EC) when constituting “technical regulations” – referring to services, including marketing and gambling encouragement.

Notices of such changes are submitted through the Technical Regulation Information System (TRIS) procedure. The CJEU added that failure to comply will render new provisions unenforceable against gambling providers, causing chaos in the market and confusing regulators, operators and customers.

Maarten Haijer, Secretary General of EGBA, commented:

“Proper notification of draft gambling regulations to the European Commission is essential for good policy making and to allow for any proposed changes to national gambling frameworks to be scrutinised for their compatibility with EU law.”

“The TRIS notification procedure facilitates transparency and allows for potential EU law compatibility issues to be identified before national regulations take effect.”

“An effective TRIS procedure also relies on the European Commission to actively scrutinise all incoming notifications, which it has not been doing consistently in recent years.”

“We’re confident, however, that the new Commission’s emphasis on the enforcement of EU law will lead to it stepping up its efforts to ensure draft national gambling laws are adequately scrutinised for their compatibility with EU law.”

EGBA has often found common ground with the EU in recent years, having supported the trade bloc’s new rules around money laundering as well as a recent EU Committee for Standardisation (CEN) report on gambling markers of harm.

Background

The above-mentioned CJEU statement came in light of a legal dispute between Lithuania’s gambling regulator and Unigames, where the latter was fined €12.7k in 2022 for allegedly displaying messages on its website encouraging play.

The penalty was imposed after the regulator’s Director “adopted an order” which incriminated the operator. Unigames then appealed the decision, claiming that the procedure for the adoption has been infringed.

A ‘No Opinion’ decision on the matter was produced by the CJEU.

Source: sbcnews.co.uk

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Iwo Bulski

Issues related to the gambling business is engaged in more than 30 years. My empirical experience gives me the opportunity to present events and companies from this business with full knowledge and industry knowledge.

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Iwo Bulski

Issues related to the gambling business is engaged in more than 30 years. My empirical experience gives me the opportunity to present events and companies from this business with full knowledge and industry knowledge.