EA has €10m loot box fine overturned by Dutch Appeals Court
Dutch Administrative Jurisdiction Division gives backing to EA over KSA fine from October 2020
EA has successfully appealed a €10m (£8.39m) fine handed to the video game publisher by the Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA) over its loot box-laden FIFA Ultimate Team feature.
The KSA slapped EA and its payments management subsidiary Electronic Arts Swiss Sàrl with the fine in October 2020 for violating the Dutch Gambling Act.
The District Court of The Hague agreed with the KSA’s ruling and ruled in the authority’s favour following EA’s appeal.
The ruling issued a €500,000 fine for every week that EA did not comply with the court’s demand to pull FIFA packs from its games, up to a maximum fine of €10m.
However, the Dutch Administrative Jurisdiction Division has now overruled the District Court’s judgment and has said that EA did not break the country’s gambling laws.
This new ruling noted that obtaining and opening FUT packs was “not an isolated game” and was part of a wider “game of skill” which added “an element of chance”.
The judge found that “the large majority of the packs [are] obtained through participation in the game”.
Since the packs are not a standalone game, they are not a game of chance and do not require a licence to be in the game.
The court stated that the publisher did not violate the Games of Chance Act, and the gaming authority should not have imposed the penalty to EA in 2020. Accordingly, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division has revoked the previously imposed penalty.
The KSA said it would consider the consequences of this ruling for its future approach to loot boxes.
Despite having this ruling overturned, other European governments have taken action against EA’s FIFA Ultimate Team in particular. As a result, EA is still banned from selling FIFA points in Belgium.
The Netherlands is not the only European nation to investigate loot boxes, as Spain is currently looking into tweaking gambling law to include NFTs and loot boxes.