Ladbrokes Appeals Case
Ladbrokes of the United Kingdom is trying to gain access of a very important
online casino market, the Norwegian market. The company also has full intent of
appealing a decision made by the court in Oslo City who recently denied the
company of its betting license. This is not the first time that they have been
denied their license to be able to run online casinos. The Norwegian company was
denied by the authorities after they applied for a betting license for the first
time in June of 2004. The folks over at Ladbrokes do not believe that they were
treated fairly in the court of law and want to make an appeal because they feel
that they can win.
The online casino’s Managing Director of Remote Betting and Gaming, John
O’Reilly has spoken out about the struggles that this online casino has had to
go through. He has stated that the evidence that the court has does not support
the case against them. He says that a lot of the European free trade laws
conflict with each other. What they want to protect themselves from is from the
government shutting them down and therefore creates a monopoly with the online
casinos in Norway. The European Free Trade Association law was created and put
into effect on May of 2007. The reason why the courts were able to make a
judgment on this case was because there was a preceding case that allows this
sort of thing to happen.
O’Reilly said, “The monopoly laws in Norway conflict with the European Union
Treaty, particularly with regard to the principles of freedom of establishment
and the free movement of services. We continue to challenge for our right to be
regulated in Norway and to provide free and fair competition to the monopoly."
Hopefully this fight will end in a positive note and they will be able to get
their online casino back up and running. Their Chief Executive Officer, Lasse
Dilschmann, says, “Just because a monopoly is considered legitimate by the
Norwegian State doesn’t make it right. We are looking forward to seeing our case
being tested in the Court of Appeal.”