Changes to UK licensing codes of practice- All you need to know

In August 2018, the Gambling Commission published its response to its consultation on proposals to revise the LCCP. The consultation resulted in 130 formal responses, with 81 from consumers.

The consultation response has now led to changes in the LCCP in three areas;

• advertising and marketing
• unfair terms and conditions
• complaints and disputes.

The changes come into effect from today. The details of the response can be found here.

Advertising and Marketing

Changes in this section have made compliance with the CAP Code and BCAP Code a mandatory provision of the LCCP. Prior to the change, these were ordinary code provisions, which set out “good practice”.  As the changes make compliance with the Codes a condition of licences, any breach may lead the Commission to review the licence.  There is also the addition of a new ordinary code provision (5.1.8) that states that licensees should follow any other relevant industry code of practice on advertising alongside the CAP/BCAP Codes.

From 31^st October, licensees will therefore run the risk of an immediate licence review if they breach the Codes or where the ASA rules against a licensee.

Unfair terms and conditions

The changes here relate to the wording of Licence Condition 7.1.1 and give much stronger protection to consumers by giving more force to the Consumer Rights Act 2015. Whilst all businesses must comply with this law, these changes give the Commission more power to review a licence if an operator is found to be in breach of these consumer laws.

Furthermore, terms and conditions now must be ‘easily accessible’ rather than simply ‘available to’ consumers. Operators must make sure that their terms and conditions whenever changed comply with general consumer law, and that licensees never engage in activities that would be deemed to be “unfair” under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

Complaints and Disputes

The updated LCCP require licensees to handle complaints in a fair, open and transparent manner. The Commission has revised social responsibility code provision 6.1.1 to achieve this outcome, making the wording shorter, but a lot of the detail is now contained in “guidance”, a draft of which is published at Appendix 1 of the revised LCCP.

Changes to the wording of LCCP 6.1.1 mean that licensees must:

• Put in place procedures to handle complaints in a timely, fair, open and transparent manner
• Complete internal complaints processes within eight weeks
• Not restrict a customer’s right to bring proceedings in any court of competent jurisdiction
• Provide clear and accessible information to consumers on how to make a complaint, timescales and escalation procedures
• Keep records of customer complaints and provide information to the Commission

The guidance:

• Sets out the Commission’s definition of a complaint and a dispute
• Requires licensees to have a clear, written complaints procedure in English which is simple to understand and easy for customers to find and use
• Allows consumers to raise a complaint for a six-month period following a dispute
• Requires licensees to acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours
• Sets out that the entire complaints process must take no longer than eight weeks (subject to customer co-operation)
• States that if unresolved, licensees should write to the customer with a ‘deadlock’ letter explaining that the internal complaint’s process is now at an end and how to escalate the dispute to an independent ADR entity.

Whilst the changes should generally be complied with anyway, they give the Gambling Commission more “teeth” when it comes to enforcement. If a breach of any of these wider conditions and codes of practice occur, the Commission can now commence an immediate review of the operator’s licence.

Author: Richard is a London based gambling lawyer, focussing on the land-based and remote gambling sector in the UK and internationally.  He has a particular interest in cryptocurrency, marketing and advertising, AML and social responsibility.  He has recent experience advising operators in relation to compliance assessments and licence reviews and has just been involved in a major judicial review of GB gambling legislation.