September 23, 2009 (CAP Newswire) — After a European Court of Justice decision earlier this month that ruled that Portugul could limit the activities of bwin, an Austrian-based online gaming company that had signed a sponsorship deal with a Portuguese football league, it appears that other online gaming companies in the region are rethinking their larger strategies.
Namely, British bookmaker Ladbrokes, which has dropped a five-year monopoly case in Norway. The reason? According to EGR Magazine, the bwin court decision changed how Ladbrokes viewed the European legal situation.
“The Casa verdict shows how difficult it is to get a monopoly tried under EU law, as it always ends up that the monopoly can be justified in terms of player protection and fraud prevention,” Ladbrokes Nordic chief executive Lasse Dilschmann told EGR. “We thought we could run into the same trouble as Bwin in Portugal, and that was a reason we backed out of the legal case in Norway.”
The Ladbrokes case began in June 2004, after the rejection of its application for a betting license in Norway.