CJEU in favor of UK gambling law

The Advocate General of the court said that Gibraltar and the UK should be treated as one entity.

Gibraltar.- Maciej Szpunar, Advocate General for the Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU), said that Gibraltar and the UK should be treated as one entity to provide their services. Analysts estimate that 90 percent of the times, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) follows Szpunar’s recommendations.

Back in 2016, the CJEU was asked by the UK High Court on whether the British territory has the right to be considered a separate member from the UK within EU laws. This petition is part of a tax dispute between industry body the Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association (GBGA) and UK HMRC. “Logically, infringement proceedings with respect to Gibraltar are brought against the UK and Gibraltar cannot institute infringement proceedings itself. In the Advocate General’s view, if the freedom to provide services were to apply between the UK and Gibraltar, this would imply, rather strangely, that the UK assumes an obligation vis-à-vis itself,” said Szpunar.

The rules that were set in 2014 establish a requirement that UK operators must have an UK Gambling Commission license besides paying a 15 percent POCT tax on revenue. The GBGC said that the tax rules were contradictory to the Article 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), that sets the right to trade freely across borders.

“The application of EU law to Gibraltar does not create new or supplementary rights between the UK and Gibraltar that are in addition to those flowing from the UK and Gibraltar constitutional law. They are to be considered as a single Member State for the purposes of the application of Article 56 TFEU. This is a purely internal situation, which means that Article 56 TFEU cannot be invoked,” the Advocate General concluded.