German Federal Constitutional Court will pronounce its leading decision on sports betting on he 28th March 2006

Rechtsanwalt Martin Arendts, M.B.L.-HSG

Arendts Rechtsanwälte
Perlacher Str. 68
D - 82031 Grünwald (bei München)
The German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) will pronounce its leading decision on sports betting on the 28th March 2006.

The long-awaited leading decision of the Federal Constitutional Court is finally going to be pronounced. As the Court announced in a press-release today, it will pronounce and explain its decision on the 28th March 2006 at 10:00 a.m. (Case No. 1 BvR 1054/01). As already reported, this case concerns a Munich bookmaker, Irene Katzinger-Göth, who filed a constitutional complaint against a decision rendered by the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht), rejecting her application for a sports betting licence.

We accredited to the Federal Constitutional Court and will thus give a firsthand account of the proceedings (as we have already done regarding the oral hearing on 8^th November 2005).

The question, where the Federal Constitutional Court will set the limits of the freedom to choose one?s profession (Art. 12 of the German Constitution) and which consequences this will have on current administrative, penal and competition law proceedings remains exciting. From our point of view, it is imaginable that the Federal Constitutional Court might order the legislator (in the case of sports betting, the 16 German states) to create a legal framework for sports betting effectively complying with German Constitutional Law and might elaborate the relevant criteria for this purpose.