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France: Online betting issues

Date: January 26, 2006
Source: Computer Crime Research Center
By: Mohammed Chawki

Decision of the Court :

Partial confirmation of Decision of First Instance Court of Paris 8 July, 2005

Report of the Dispute :

The Court rules on a judgment of the First Instance Court of Paris which was rendered on 8 July 2005, an appeal having been lodged by ZeTurf Society ( Société ZETURF) , on 22 November, 2005.
In this judgment, it will only be recalled that the bookmaker, ZeTurf duly registered and incorporated in Malta, provides French internet users the possibility to bet on horse races, whereas this type of gambling services falls under the exclusive right of the PMU (Pari Mutual Urbain). The act of 16 April 1930 ( loi du 13 avril 1930, art. 186) grants the PMU the monopoly to organise betting activities on horse races. Moreover, PMU is the holder of the exclusive right to take bets on horse races that take place outside France since 1964. During the summary proceedings, the PMU recalled further that the so-called Perben II Act of 10 March 2004 sanctioned the unauthorized organisation of lotteries with two years of imprisonment and a fine of € 30 000. In its decision of 8 July 2005, the First Instance Court of Paris followed the PMU’s requests and argumentation. It argued that “the management of organization has been entrusted to the PMU by the companies authorized to be active in the field of pool betting outside the hippodromes, as it was provided by article 27decree no 97-456 of 5 May 1997 modified by the decree no 02-1346 of 12 November 2002”. Accordingly, “Zeturf inflicts an obviously illicit perturbation to the PMU by taking online bets without proper authorisation”. The defendant was ordered to put an end to the activity of taking online bets on horse races organised in France, this on a penalty of 15000 euros per day following 48 hours from notification of the TGI decision .

Grounds for the Judgment of Paris Court of Appeal

In the appealed judgment, the Paris Court of Appeal accepted the judgement of the First Instance Court of Paris and ruled that according to French law, the national pool PMU is the only organisation allowed to organise betting on French horseracing. It also ruled that the French law was compatible with European Union law. The appeal judgement confirms the judgement at First Instance Court of Paris of July 2005, but increases the penalties for incompliance (50.000 euros).



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2006-01-27 06:51:59 - Interesting article, but a few points that... Ben
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