European Commission has been urged to accelerate its investigation into Greek laws that prohibit leading fixed-odds sportsbetting firm from offering its services.
Wednesday 3rd February 2010
StanleyBet International has welcomed a plea for the European Commission to speed up an investigation into Greek legislation that prohibits firms such as the leading fixed-odds sportsbetting firm from offering its services in the country.
Last week, the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee urged the Commission to accelerate its investigation into Greek laws that prohibit betting operators legally established in other member states from setting up their services in Greece.
StanleyBet stated that its application for a licence to operate in Greece had been ‘consistently rejected’ with the subsequent legal proceedings subject to ‘continuous delay and procrastination’. Following calls to action, the Commission launched an investigation into the incompatibility of the Greek regulations with European Union principles early in 2007 and issued a reasoned opinion a year later condemning the restrictions as being contrary to the freedom to provide cross-border services.
Seizing on this decision, intermediaries for StanleyBet began offering its sportsbetting services eight months later at sites in Athens and Thessalonica. However, the premises were soon raided by police who seized equipment, documents and cash while arresting customers and employees.
In the most recent call to action, members of the Petitions Committee denounced the ‘disproportionate and repressive enforcement measures’ imposed by the Greek authorities to prevent the offering of sportsbetting services by an operator fully licensed in another member state.
“This inaction is not even to protect a Greek government monopoly, it is to protect a company listed in the Athens Stock Exchange,” said Roger Helmer, a British Member of the European Parliament.
“There is nothing delicate here. Let us get on and do it. Justice delayed is justice denied.”
“The Greek authorities have not moved an inch since February of 2008 when they were required by the European Commission to remove the unlawful restrictions,” said John Whittaker, Chief Executive Officer for StanleyBet.
“I very much welcome the European Parliament’s call for an end to inaction. This situation in Greece is all the more unacceptable as the regulatory framework for sportsbetting is abusively based on exclusive rights granted to OPAP SA, a private for-profit Greek company listed in the Athens Stock Exchange but having one-third of its capital controlled by the Greek state.
