German Betting Tender Progresses As ECJ Sets Digibet Decision Date

By Daniel Mcadam, Gambling Compliance

Europe’s highest court will rule next week on a case into the enforceability of Germany’s internet gambling restrictions, but lawyers believe it is unlikely to disrupt the country’s contentious betting tender as applicants move into the final phase.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) will release its judgment on June 12 into the Digibet case (C-156/13) about whether Germany’s gambling legislation is inconsistent and breaks EU rules.

The EU judges were asked about the disparity of the Schleswig-Holstein region having an open licensing process compared with a more restrictive system in the rest of the country that bans online casino and poker.

In a complicated scenario, Schleswig-Holstein voted to repeal its gambling law on the same day that the case was referred to the ECJ, but its 48 online casino and betting licences remain in force.

“I can’t imagine the court will say all is fine. Even a legally blind person can see it’s not a coherent situation,” said Wulf Hambach, partner at Hambach & Hambach law firm in Munich.

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IMGL Autumn Conference

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A lack of payment options blights e-commerce in Spain

By Carlos Pombo, Associate Asensi Abogados

While e-commerce is gaining traction in Spain, the sector suffers from a lack of available payment options online. While this can be viewed as an obstacle to the growth of e-commerce, it also presents an opportunity for epayment platform providers that are now emerging on the Spanish market. Carlos Pombo, an Associate at Asensi Abogados law firm, discusses the state of Spain’s online  payments market and explains why some e-payment platform providers are currently unregulated under Spanish legislation.

The number of online transactions in Spain has increased by about 15%-20% annually in recent years, and this trend is expected to
continue in the medium and long term. That growth stems from several factors such as, for instance, the high percentage of the population that has access to the internet in Spain, the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, and the gradually increasing confidence on the part of users when it comes to providing their bank details or their credit or debit card details in order to buy goods over the internet.

Read the whole article (published on 17 April 2014) here.

Betting on Italian Football: Is It Still Worth a Business?

By Quirino Mancini, Partner, SCM LAWYERS

At a time when Italian football is offering the world its worst face both on and off the pitch as shown also by the recent street riots between Rome FC and Naples FC during the Italian Cup final that took place in Rome in early May, one asks himself if investing on Serie A clubs is still a wise and worth business.  The instinctive answer will probably be negative for many bearing in mind that Italy has now plummeted in the official UEFA ranking, unlike all other first-tier European leagues where the trend of average crowds is upwards, the number of Italian supporters going to the stadium is constantly shrinking, hooliganism and racism are thriving in most football arenas of the Peninsula, and the vast majority of the facilities (starting from the Rome Olympic decrepit stadium) is old, run down and quite unfit for the clubs to be able to offer proper corporate hospitality packages to their sponsors.  … Continue Reading