German court ends Westlotto-Bwin legal dispute

In a six year legal wrangle where Westdeutsche Lotterie GmbH & Co OHG (Westlotto) applied for an injunction against online gaming provider, bwin International Ltd., seeking to prevent the company from organizing, mediating and advertising sports betting, casino and lottery games in Germany, the country’s Federal Supreme Court passed judgement in favour of bwin.
Following previous judgements in February 2008 and July 2010, Germany’s highest civil court has this week, once again, ruled that Westlotto cannot obtain injunctive relief against online gaming offerings.
“We welcome the judgement by the German Federal Supreme Court, and are glad that we will have to spend less of our time in courtrooms in the future. Now we can concentrate on developing modern regulations for online gaming in Germany”, commented Norbert Teufelberger, Co-CEO of bwin.
“We are optimistic that Germany will follow the example of other European states like Italy and France. As in the United Kingdom, both these states have regulated the opening-up of their markets in such a way as to take into account both market circumstances and the need for gamer protection and combating fraud.
“We shall continue to constructively support the positive regulation of online gaming, contributing the extensive know-how that we have acquired, not least as a licensed provider in newly regulated markets like Italy and France.”

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