Seven online gaming concessionaires benefit from some recent ordinances with which the Lazio TAR suspended the forfeiture of community concessions
With some recent rulings, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court suspended the forfeiture of community concessions for some online gaming concessionaires. The operators in question are Multigioco, Winamax, Pgs Italia, Greentube Malta Limited, Italiaonline Gaming, Hbg Online Gaming srl and Stanleybet Malta Limited. In all these orders, the administrative judges have expressed some doubts about the legitimacy of the respective forfeiture measures communicated by the Customs and Monopoly Agency and have accepted, although for the moment as a precautionary measure, the reasons raised by the aforementioned operators. In fact, one of the ordinances states that “there are profiles of doubt - moreover already expressed in the adoption of the precautionary decree pursuant to art. 56 c.p.a. - on the interpretation followed by the respondent Agency in ordering the interruption of the game collection from the day following the expiry of the concession in question, in light of the regulatory provision referred to in art. 1, paragraph 935, of law no. 28 December 2015, n. 208 (so-called "2016 Stability Law") ". Basically, for administrative judges, as stated in another ordinance, the interpretation of the aforementioned art. 1, paragraph 935, of law no. 28 would not be implausible. December 2015, no. 208 (so-called 2016 Stability Law) according to which "the temporal alignment, as of December 31, 2022, of all concessions concerning the marketing of remote gaming" . Hence, therefore, the measures to suspend the contested measures, taking into account that only in this way can the prejudice complained of by the applicant concessionaires be protected so as to allow them to "continue in the remote gaming collection activity" managed by them. by virtue of the concessions in question and to guarantee, moreover, "the continuity of tax revenues and the fight against illegal gambling". The next step, for six of the above operators, will be on 6 October 2021 with the discussion on the merits, when presumably the Customs and Monopolies Agency will have launched the tender to award the new titles. For Stanleybet Malta Ltd, on the other hand, the council chamber of 14 April 2021 has been set for the collegiate discussion.
