Belgium has defended the legal right of its Gaming Commisson to blacklist and block pan-European operators, as it looks to deter other companies from joining bwin.party in taking legal action over being “named and shamed.”
Casino Choice understands that several other operators are currently weighing up potential legal action over being included on the Belgian Gaming Commission’s blacklist of illegal sites on 9 May. Owners of 10 dot.com domains - Betfair, bwin.party, William Hill, Betsson, Bet-At-Home, BetClic, Expekt, Stan James, 188 and Betway - were informed by letter they had 30 days to lodge a complaint against the Commission’s decision at the Belgian Administrative Court, after which time local internet service providers would be compelled to block their websites.
bwin.party subsequently issued a lawsuit on 18 May against the Minister of Justice and the Gaming Commission citing the “enormous” financial, commercial and reputational damage of its websites being added to the list of blocked domains on 9 May.
However, lawyers for the Belgian State on Friday issued several arguments against bwin.party’s claim that placing their domains on a blacklist was invalid because no Royal Decree granting the Commission this legal power had been published. The state’s lawyers held that Belgian law did empower the Gaming Commission to blacklist websites, “referring to the preparatory works of the Act on games of chance”, according to a note published by lawyers DLA Piper today.
Belgium’s lawyers also argued in the Court of First Instance in Brussels on Friday that the illegality of these sites under Belgian law had been proven by last July’s ruling of the Belgian Constitutional Court and that of the Correctional Court in Brussels last March, where bwin, now bwin.party, was ordered to pay a fine of €75,000 due to its bwin.be website breaching Belgian law.
The State’s lawyers also argued that Friday bwin.party had wrongfully cited the Belgian State in connection with the blocking of the site, according to DLA Piper’s note, as it was in fact internet service providers who block the www.bwin.com website, and that they had a genuine interest in pursuing this course of action as a failure to do so would leave them open to potential civil claims.
Belgium also issued a counterclaim against bwin.party, DLA Piper reported, requesting that “the judge must confirm the prohibition for bwin to offer any online gambling activity in which Belgian residents can participate, and asked for a publication of this judgment to ensure compliance therewith.” Further, the Belgian State has requested the judge order bwin.party return all wagers received since it was blacklisted on 9 May. The public prosecutor also revealed criminal enquiries against bwin.party were also pending.
The President of the court has pledged to hand down a judgment on the case by 25 June at the latest.
Under the 30-day termination notice issued on 9 May, the owners of the other blacklisted websites - Betfair, William Hill, Betsson, Bet-At-Home, BetClic, Expekt, Stan James, 188 and Betway - now have until 8 June to lodge a complaint with the Belgian Administrative Court. As well as having to weigh the cost of legal action against the returns from investing in what is a relatively small market, these operators also have to consider that a failure to lodge a complaint could ease Belgium’s path to establishing a further legal precedent for Member States to justify restricting access to their egaming markets to local land-based incumbents, despite the apparent conflict of this provision with aspects of EU competition law.
Patrick van Eecke of DLA Piper also told Casino Choice that many of these operators without a physical presence in Belgium could easily have missed the letter from the Commission and may not realise the right of legal recourse to their blacklisting was open to them. “The letter is typically in Dutch or French, it’s certainly not gong to be drafted in English, it states that you have 30 days to react against the decision before the Belgian Administrative Courts. We believe some of those companies on the blacklist are not aware of this, they have not read or seen the letter, or it has not arrived. We think a lot of these companies are missing an opportunity right now.”
Van Eecke added that the Commission’s “name and shame initiative” of a few high-profile companies whilst taking no proactive action against the vast majority of other websites taking Belgian customers was potentially discriminatory. ”There is a plethora of European arguments that can be used, and certainly are gong to be used. On a local level there are already lots of arguments that can be used to fight the fact the Gaming Commission is simply putting companies on a blacklist and generating publicity around it.”
Under the Belgian Royal Decree that came into effect last year, online permits are restricted to licensed land-based gaming entities in Belgium, with nine A+ licences on offer to casinos, 34 F1+ permits to sports betting operators and around 180 B+ licences to arcade operators.
