Gibraltar operators request review of POC finding in the UK

The Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association has asked for a judicial review following the recent High Court defeat of its challenge to the new British point-of-consumption online gambling law (see previous reports).

The GBGA said it had applied for a judicial review of the Treasury’s tax plans after reviewing the judgment and Mr Justice Green’s reasoning, which it said had encouraged it to launch a legal challenge against the tax implications of the UK government’s remote gambling initiative.

The new tax rules were kept separate from the remote gambling regulation changes. However, gambling operators that do not adhere to the new tax regime risk having their remote gambling licence revoked by the Gambling Commission, the Association claims.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Green said that previous case law had established that founding principles of EU law do not allow for “measures restricting the freedom to provide services between member states … [to] be justified on purely economic grounds”. The judge said that “the precise boundaries of what is and what is not an economic justification are not writ in stone” but that “a restriction designed to raise tax would be an economic objective and, as such, inadmissible as a justification”.

Justice Green concluded that the government’s regulatory reforms, whilst not faultless, were nevertheless proportionate to the aims being pursued and therefore rejected the GBGA’s original legal challenge.

The GBGA says its new legal challenge will again be based in part on the potential to encourage the black market.