Lithuania’s strict rules on online gambling ads might not hold up after a recent ruling from a European court, which found that the country had not followed the proper procedures when making the changes.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that because Lithuania failed to inform the European Commission about the amendments, they cannot be enforced against businesses.
Online gambling operator Unigames had taken Lithuania’s Gambling Supervisory Authority to court over a 2021 change to the country’s gambling law. The amendment to Article 10(19) broadened the ban on gambling promotion to cover “any” form of advertising, no matter how it was done. Unigames ended up with a €12,662 ($13,795) fine for statements on its website that were seen as encouraging people to gamble.
Lithuania’s gambling law change deemed a ‘substantial procedural defect’
In official documents, the court stated that the breach of notification “constitutes a substantial procedural defect in the adoption of the technical regulations concerned and renders those technical regulations inapplicable, so that they are unenforceable against individuals.”
It added that the law on gambling “substantially revised” the prohibition on encouraging participation in gambling.
“In particular, the referring court states that the conduct of which Unigames is accused on the basis of the law currently in force, consisting of the publication, on that company’s website, of information relating to the gambling activities offered by it, was not liable to be punished under the former Law on gambling,” the court ruled.
The CJEU said that the amendment qualifies as a “technical regulation” under EU law, meaning it affects digital services and should have been reported to the European Commission before being enforced. According to Directive 2015/1535, Lithuania was supposed to notify the commission before making the change official.
The court made it clear that this rule applies to both brand-new regulations and major changes to existing ones.
The case will now go back to Lithuania’s Supreme Administrative Court, which will use the CJEU’s ruling to decide whether Unigames’ fine should be overturned.
Featured image: Luxofluxo via WikiCommons 4.0
