Bwin loses Belgian court case
Court in the EU member state finds that the operator's appeal against its blacklisting "had no legal merit".
Bwin.party brand bwin has lost its appeal against its inclusion on Belgium’s egaming blacklist after a Brussels court found that its request had “no legal merit”.
The operator, which was one of 10 new names added to the country’s blacklist last month along with fellow London-listed companies Betfair and William Hill, had called for the Belgian Gaming Commission to remove it from the list and unblock Belgian customers from accessing the dot.com site.
It had initially sought damages of 300,000 for each day bwin.com was included on the blacklist, however Belgian authorities launched a counter claim two weeks ago calling for an equivalent amount to be paid by the operator for each day it continued its illegal activities in the jurisdiction.
At the time, a spokesperson for the Belgian Gaming Commission told eGaming Review that the counter-claim also sought to impose sanctions on bwin.party “If they continue sending emails to players indicating on which other illegal websites of Bwin they still can gamble.”
Despite winning the judgement the Belgian government will not collect costs from bwin.party, with Philippe Vlaemminck, a partner with ALTIUS – the firm representing the government – telling eGR: “The 300,000 was in support of the counterclaim , but the judge said that such counterclaim (namely stopping [bwin.party from operating] through circumvention) was not necessary.”
Bwin.party has applied for land-based and online gambling licences in Belgium via its bwin.fr brand but its dot.com domain, which has been placed on the blacklist, is the subject of this case.
Bart Heynickx, a litigation specialist with ALTIUS, said: “Had the court granted [bwin.party’s] request, it would have been astonishing and would have been a slippery slope leading to all sorts of abuses. Those who choose to operate outside the law cannot then claim its protection “
The Belgian blacklist was first introduced in February, at the same time the country’s first egaming licences were issued. Among the other operators included on the list, and whose inclusion is accompanied by a warning screen preventing players from accessing their site from Belgium, are 888, TitanBet and Winamax.
It is currently unclear whether bwin.party intends to appeal the ruling. A spokesman for the operator was unavailable for comment when contacted by eGR.
(Photo via Mike Hammerton under Creative Commons licence)