The Paris Court of Appeal has upheld the ban on Unibet offering wagers on matches played at the French Open.
With this verdict, the sports betting company has reportedly become the first online casino to be subject to France’s new rule applying fees to French-owned sporting events, a law which hasn’t yet been formally introduced. The company has been ordered to pay $1.79 million to Roland Garros for ownership rights to the French Open tennis tournament, reported Online Casino Advisory. The report also mentioned that the new law was applied by the Paris Court of Appeals, hearing a case in which Unibet was contesting a decision to bar it from accepting bets on the tennis event. “Not only did the appellate court support the lower ruling, but it doubled the amount due in damages as it considered the change in law since the case had begun”, it reported.
In the past, Unibet has expressed its disappointment over France’s total disregard of European Community law aiming to protect a domestic commercial gambling monopoly.
A couple of years ago, Petter Nylander, CEO of Unibet, was detained by Dutch authorities after checking in to a flight to get back to his home in the UK. The background for this detention was the proceedings filed in 2006 by the French lottery monopoly Française des Jeux and horse betting monopoly PMU against Unibet, alleging breach of the French national laws from 1836 and 1891 protecting those State-owned monopolies.
