Italian operators win legal appeal in licence expiry dispute

An Italian court has ruled in favour of more than 40 operators in a legal challenge against the country’s gambling regulator (ADM) over the expiration of their Italian licences. Rome’s TAR Administrative Court has ruled the operators should be granted one-year licence extensions, with licences now set to expire in October 2021. The decision comes after operators including Mansion Group, SportPesa and Betway were issued with termination notices by ADM in October. Responding to a recent change in policy by the Italian authorities, ADM asserted legacy nine-year community licences previously awarded to the operators, which sprang from an earlier 2009 Italian law, would expire at the original expiration date and would not be extended beyond the end of 2020. As part of this, the ADM threatened to disconnect affected operators from the Sogei system, a data-sharing platform which all licensed operators must connect to remain compliant with the country’s gambling laws. However, the operators concerned were under the impression that all existing licences would expire at the end of 2022, prior to the start of a new licence tender process in 2023, leading to confusion among these firms and ultimately to the filing of an appeal in October. Justices at the court noted the Italian government’s parliamentary hearing on its 2021 budget, which includes a plan for the broader “reorganisation of the public gaming sector”, which could see a new licensing model introduced next year. The postponement of existing licence awards scheduled for 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic was also cited by judges as mitigating circumstances under which the extension could be granted. ADM has been ordered to pay legal costs arising from the appeals.