Italien reformiert den iGaming-Markt radikal: Die Lizenzen sinken von 407 auf 52, Gebühren steigen massiv – große Anbieter wie Unibet und Betway ziehen sich zurück.

Ahead of a scheduled vote wherein Dutch legislators will consider UIGEA-style legislation designed to restrict access to the Dutch online gambling market for international court, a Netherlands Court denied an appeal in a related case by Unibet, admitting that its interpretation is different than that called for by European Union treaty. Unibet had been judged guilty of violating the Dutch Gaming Act and infringing upon the market rights of the Dutch state lottery, De Lotto (The Lotto).

Unibet and William Hill have been fined by the Civil Court of First Instance in France for using the trademarked word ‘Juventus’ on their websites in reference to bets offered on a recent match between the Italian team and Real Madrid. The ruling stated that by using the word Juventus in slogans or comments aimed at promoting their online betting activity, the companies were guilty of “counterfeiting”.

Brussels, Belgium: France opened talks with the European Union on Tuesday in an effort to end their dispute over gambling and consider ways to open up the French betting monopoly. The EU's head office is looking to end state monopolies on gambling in several European countries in a bid to enforce the EU's free internal market and antitrust rules. It has threatened to bring countries before the European Court of Justice if they do not reform voluntarily.

The Swedish head of online betting firm Unibet on Thursday called for an end to the French state's gaming monopoly, attacking the laws under which he is being investigated for illegal activities as "obsolete." Petter Nylander is currently on bail after being arrested in the Netherlands last month in a case that has been criticised by the European Commission, which is in favour of greater competition in the sports betting market.

Unibet CEO Petter Nylander has been released on bail after having been transferred from the Netherlands to the French legal authorities in Nanterre, Paris. After the hearing, the judge decided to release Nylander under the condition of a bail of 200,000 euros. In 2006, French lottery monopoly Française des Jeux and horse betting monopoly PMU alleged that Unibet had breached French national laws protecting those state-owned monopolies.

Der Europäische Gerichtshof (EuGH) hat in dem am 13. März 2006 verkündeten Unibet-Urteil noch einmal die Bedeutung des effektiven Rechtsschutzes gegen europarechtswidrige nationale Maßnahmen hervorgehoben. Der EuGH beantwortete damit von dem schwedischen Höchstgericht (Högsta domstolen) vorgelegte Fragen (Rechtssache C-432/05, Unibet (London) Ltd und Unibet (International) Ltd gegen Justitiekanslern). In dem den britischen Buchmacher Unibet betreffenden Verfahren ging es um die Frage der Rechtsschutzmöglichkeit bezüglich einer gegen die Dienstleistungsfreiheit (Art. 49 EG) verstoßenden nationalen Vorschrift.

In seiner Entscheidung vom 02.02.2006 (AZ.: 31 O 605/04), die im Wortlaut soeben bekannt wurde, hat das Landgericht Köln der Firma „betandwin“ und ihrem Geschäftsführer verboten, ohne behördliche Erlaubnis Glücks-spiele und/oder Sportwetten in Deutschland anzubieten und/oder zu be-werben. Mit entsprechender Begründung wurde auch den drei anderen großen ausländischen Anbietern „intertops“ (Az.:31 O 31 O 578/02), „uni-bet“ (Az.:31 O 601/04) und „bet365“ (Az.:31 O 118/05) der Vertrieb von Glücksspielen in Deutschland verboten.