GamingTechLAW

Mobile payment in Italy, almost € 1 bn of volume!

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Tue, 21 May 2013 09:13:00 +0000

The University of Milan published a report on the status of mobile payment in Italy in 2012 which shows a potential growth that might lead to a volume of mobile payment transactions of over € 10 bn in 2016.

Indeed, the current scenario of the mobile payment market reports transactions for € 900 million in 2012 driven by the growth of mobile commerce which increased by 60% even if the largest volume of transactions derives from the purchase of digital contents with € 470 million. Also the usage of NFC phones has generated interested data with over 2.5 million users and almost 30,000 POS which are expected to become 6 million users and 170,000 POS by the end of 2013.

This growth will be fostered by the recent law provisions, the so called Decree Sviluppo-bis, which set forth the obligation:

for public entities and entities controlled by the State to receive payments through mobile technologies and
for any entity selling products and services to accept payments through credit card from 2014 with the possibility for the competent Ministries to extend such obligation to payments through mobile devices.

This growth was also due to the increase of number of smartphones that are now held by more than 50% of Italian users and indeed Italy is one of the European countries with the highest mobile penetration per citizens.

However,as already mentioned, there are some regulatory restrictions but these restrictions might be removed waiving any regulatory limit to the usage of the credit on the phone SIM card for payments but also implementing measures aimed at creating incentives for payments via mobile.

All these factors create very interesting expectations for the future of the Italian mobile payment sector and as usual feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio, if you want to discuss the potential opportunities and regulatory restrictions.

Internet and Advertising Consultation

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:30:00 +0000

The Italian Communications Authority has just launched a consultation on Internet services and online advertising with the purpose of collecting opinions on the future of the Internet from users and operators.

The topics for which opinions can be submitted include:

fixed and movable means for the accessing to the webs (e.g. smartphones and tablets);
operation systems and browsers;
search engines and social networks;
information services on the web, online newspaper and radio and TV companies websites and blogs;
distribution and payment platforms;
online audience detection systems;
intermediary online advertising platforms and additional collectors of online advertising.

Opinions shall be submitted by the 1st of July 2013 via email, but can be also twitted using the hashtag #consultagcom.

This might be an interesting opportunity for companies that want to bring the attention of the Italian Communications Authority on issues relevant for their business. In this respect, if you want to discuss this matter, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

Is tax reduction the best tool against the black market?

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:09:00 +0000

The Italian gambling authority, AAMS, published the data on the Italian online gaming market for the first quarter of 2013 which show a minor reduction of spending of 0.2% compared to the same period of 2012, but what looks very interesting is that almost 50% of the spending in the market is generated by casino games and cash poker games. And casino games and cash poker games are the sole games currently subject to a gross profit tax regime.

In particular, casino games saw a huge boost because of the launch of online slots in December 2012 with an increase of the spending of 84.7% which according to the AAMS report was due to the reduction of the Italian casino black market whose spending in 2012 was assessed to be around € 280 million as opposed to € 147 million of the online licensed casino market. However, if a contraction of the black market has really occurred this is also due to the tax regime implemented for online slots which allowed operators to offer the same payout as the one available on .COM platforms.

On the contrary, in relation to the sportsbetting sector a spending increase of 29.1% has occurred compared to Q1 2013 but this was due to a payout of 94.9% occurred in January 2012. And this confirms the inefficiency of a turnover based tax regime. Indeed, it is likely that operators in January 2012 did not gain any profit since they had to pay turnover taxes between 2% and 5% regardless on whether or not they had achieved any margin. As a consequence, odds offered by unlicensed operators are often more attractive since the urcentainty of a turnover based tax regime to which licensed operators are subject leads them to offer lower odds to preserve their margins.

The recent approval of betting exchange regulations whose offering will be subject to a 20% gross profit tax might foster AAMS to expand the same regime to fixed odd sportsbetting games also given the number of complaints that such different tax regime between the two products is generating, but in the meantime operators shall ensure that an additional 0.5% gross profit tax is not requested for bets and events not included in the official AAMS schedule as prescribed by the relevant draft regulations.

Only a gross profit tax regime might considerably limit the black market and the hope is that the good example provided by Spaniards with a gross profit tax regime across all the products which - together with other measures - efficiently reduced the black market will be shortly followed by the Italian gambling regulator.

As usual if you want to discuss the above, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

Facebook page manager convicted

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:00:00 +0000

After the recent conviction of a blogger, the Court of Rome (Italy) has now convicted to 9 months of imprisonment a Facebook page manager for the comments posted by its users because of the crime of "instigation and encouragement to commit crimes".

The case related to a Facebook page against illegal billboards where users encouraged to take action against them. Because of such comments, a number of vandalism activities had taken place in Rome where over a hundred billboards had been spray blinded and such actions had given rise to a criminal claim against the manager of the Facebook page.

As occurred in the previous case, the defendant had tried to allege that he had no control over the messages published but the court held that given the contents of the message he could not have ignored their criminal relevance and therefore should have taken action against them.

It is interesting to see that both decisions do not mention the non-monitoring and liability exemption for hosting providers principles set forth in the EU E-Commerce Directive. Indeed, based on the principles of the E-Commerce Directive as implemented in Italy, hosting providers which might include both blogger and Facebook page managers hosting comments from users are not liable of the contents published by their users and are not obliged to remove them unless they receive a court order.

These recent decisions create a situation of uncertainty that hopefully higher courts will terminate, but in the meantime if you want to discuss the above feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

Tax permanent extablishment for e-commerce operators: a major risk!

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:46:00 +0000

Here is the link to an interesting article from our DLA Piper tax partner on the potential risks of a tax permanent establishment for e-commerce operators, including online gaming operators.

Italian gambling data and black market

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:31:00 +0000

Blogger convicted for user's defamatory comments

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Fri, 10 May 2013 05:39:00 +0000

The court of Varese (Italy) held that a blogger was liable of the defamation crime because of the comments published by some of her users on a forum available on her blog since as administrator of the blog she had the "availability" of the website which triggered a liability for both the contents published by her and by third parties.

This decision will lead to several discussions as you may remember that the Italian Court of Cassation (i.e. our Supreme Court) had taken a completely different view in the past. And it is interesting that the court held the defendant liable regardless of whether or not the contents published on the site had been filtered (i.e. had to be pre-apporoved by the administrator) or there was no prior filtering to their publication.

It is also interesting that the court did not qualify the blog/forum as press material which under Italian law triggers an editor's liability for all published contents, but as a "tool of communication among people" with the aggaviating circumstance of the occurance of the communication through advertising means.

Finally it is good to stress that according to the court decision, the presence of Ts&Cs or regulations of the site which prescribed the users' exclusive liability for their comments was not relevant since such type of agreements do not exclude criminal liabilities i.e. the authors of the comments could be deemed contributory liable for the crime, but their liability operated in addition to the administrator's liability.

We will see the reactions to this decision but in the meantime if you want to discuss the above, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

Betting exchange regulations into force!

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Thu, 09 May 2013 22:52:00 +0000

The Italian betting exchange regulations have been just published on the Official Gazette and will soon come into force. But the question is what will be the effect of betting exchange games in the Italian market?

Betting exchange regulations provide a platform certification and approval process along the lines of what already prescribed for casino and card games. Also, the maximum winning will be € 10,000 and operators will be able to offer both events and types of odds included in AAMS official schedule and those customized events and types of odds submitted by them whose offering will soon be possible for fixed odd sportsbetting games.

However, as occurred with the coming into force of bets on virtual events, the favourable tax regime of betting exchange games which will be 20% of gross profits (i.e. of the operator's commission that cannot exceed 10% of the amount gambled) creates concerns on the potential negative effect that these games might have on the sportsbetting market. Indeed, the sportsbetting sector will soon see a process of liberalization which might partially reduce the loss suffered in 2012, but its tax regime based on turnover rather than on gross profits might render the betting exchange offering more attractive for players.

Additionally, according to the published version of the decree, it appears that operators will not be able to team up in networks in the betting exchange offering and therefore a type of game which was already likely to be offered by very few operators might end up having a single operator controlling the entire market even if the international liquidity sharing will not be allowed.

Given the above it will be interesting to see the reaction from sportsbetting operators to the coming into force of betting exchange regulations. And as usual, if you want to discuss about the above, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

Gambling advertising of online casino operator challenged

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Fri, 03 May 2013 12:28:00 +0000

The Italian Advertising Self-Regulatory Court deemed the TV ad of a major remote gaming licensed casino operator in breach of the recently introduced provisions of the Advertising Self-Regulatory Code on gambling advertising.

The TV ad concerned the recently launched online slots showing a player gambling during the night with his PC and all of sudden gaining a major winning followed by a rain of golden coins.

The Monitoring Committee first and the Court of the Institute of Advertising Self-Regulation then held that the ad was in breach of the provisions against gambling advertising of the Advertising Code since it was creating expectations of easy winnings pushing players to underestimate the gambling addiction risks. Also, according to the court, the fact that the ad stressed the possibility to immediately withdraw the winning was encouraging players to gamble in order to sort financial issues. Finally, the presence of responsible gambling statements was not considered per se by the court as a sufficient tool to avoid the breach.

This is a very interesting decision as the new gambling advertising regulations had never been tested before. However, it may be argued that if a casino operator offers a major jackpot it should be able to advertise it. Indeed, it is not clear in the decision whether the fact itself of advertising a potential winning of a very large amount of money may be deemed in breach of advertising regulations. And if this approach is followed in subsequent decisions it might be argued that such decisions are in breach of the general principle of freedom to perform business since advertising is an essential part of a business.

What is your view on this decision? Feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio, to discuss.

Nickname theft is a crime

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Wed, 01 May 2013 07:54:00 +0000

The Italian Supreme Court convicted for the crime of identity theft a person that had created on an erotic chat a nickname with the initials of her former employer also providing her mobile number.

The defendant had argued that the crime did not arise because she had not pretended to be the claimant. Indeed, in the past the court had held that an identity theft occurs only when a person creates an email account with the personal details of another person misleading third parties on his identity.

However, in this last decision the court also held that the creation of the nickname referring to another person triggered the crime of identity theft since the crime arises "also when it is given to another person either a false name or a false status or a quality from which applicable laws trigger some legal consequences, being qualified as a "name" not only the first name but also any identity feature". And, according to the court, nicknames to be used for communications on the Internet fall among identity features as they grant a virtual identity which is able to lead to consequences in the real life.

This is a very interesting decision since if a nickname with the mere initials of a person can trigger the crime of identity theft its scope appears very broad. However, the decision of the court might have been affected by the fact that the nickname was provided together with the person's mobile number.

Finally, it is likely that this dispute will face also civil claims for privacy breach which on the basis of the reasoning of the Supreme Court would be triggered not only by the disclosure of the mobile number but also by the usage of the nickname which even if created by the defendant might be deemed as a personal data according to the reasoning of the court.

What is your view on the above? Feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio, if you want to discuss.

Ryanair sanctioned for charging credit card fees

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:45:00 +0000

Ryanair has been sanctioned to the payment of an € 400K fine as their advertised flight fares were not inclusive of an additional cost for the usage of credit cards whose charging has been in any case deemed in breach of applicable regulations.

The Italian competition authority which has jurisdiction also on misleading advertising and unfair commercial practices had held in 2011 that, among others, the conduct undertaken by Ryanair in charging an "additional admin fee" for payments via credit card was in breach of Italian law provisions which prohibits advertising practices concerning flight fares referring to prices net of expenses, taxes and additional costs that are not clearly mentioned in the offer.

Subsequently, in 2012 the authority held that Ryanair had continued that challenged conduct but the company undertook to comply with the authority's decision by the 1st of December 2012. However, the authority has now reached the conclusion that Ryanair had not complied yet with its decision in the period between the 1st of December 2012 and the 2nd of February 2013 through the charging of a 2% "credit card tax" that was not included in the advertised price.

The authority in its decision referred to Italian provisions implementing the EU Payment Services Directive according to which "the beneficiary [of the payment] cannot charge expenses to the payer for the usage of a specific payment means". Therefore the position of the authority is that it is not possible to charge any fee for the usage of payment means. On the contrary it is possible to apply a discount in case of usage of a specific payment means.

On the basis of the above, as of the 2nd of February 2013 Ryanair started advertising a price inclusive of the fees for payments through credit card, but referring to a 2% discount in case of payments through debit card. The new approach followed by Ryanair has been deemed by the authority compliant with applicable laws but they decided to sanction the company for their prior lack of compliance with its order.

This decision creates a precedent which is applicable not only for any e-commerce operator (including for instance gambling operators) but also in relation to any advertised business as we mentioned in a recent post concerning franchising arrangements. The price inclusive of any potential cost shall be disclosed to consumers from the first contact with them through the advertising material and no fees can be charged for the usage of payment tools.

We will see whether this approach will be confirmed by subsequent decisions, but in the meantime if you want to discuss the above feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

Data Breaches - What to do!

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 07:35:00 +0000

The Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) after a long consultation has finally published its decision on the measures to be taken in case of data breaches by telecom and Internet operators implementing the Directive 2009/136/CE.

Telephone and internet service providers shall notify the DPA of any breach of personal data stored in electronic databases or manual archives within 24 hours from the discovery of the event providing details on the breach such as types of data involved, processing systems affected, place where the breach took place. However, in the most relevant cases, it will be necessary to inform also the individuals affected by the data breach within 3 days providing details on the type of damages that can arise from the data breach (e.g. identity theft, reputational damages or personal damages), the circumstance of whether or not the stolen data were current, the types of data involved (e.g. financial, judicial or health-related data) and the volume of data involved.

Notifications might not necessary if adequate security measures making stolen data unintelligible are put in place but the DPA can in any case impose such obligation in the most relevant cases. Also, in order to allow to the DPA to exercise its audit rights, operators shall have a registry of the occurred breaches, their consequences and the actions taken in relation to them.

The notification obligation will not apply to content providers, search engines, Internet cafes and intranet providers, but for those entities subject to the above mentioned obligations fines up to € 150,000 will be applicable in addition to fines for the lack of notifications to individuals involved and for the lack of compliance with the obligation to set up the above mentioned registry.

The obligation is already into force and operators shall soon comply with its terms. For this purpose, if you want to discuss the above, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

e-Books Warranty Exclusion Clauses Invalid

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:25:00 +0000

Ts&Cs of e-books platforms excluding warranties for the e-books sold or for the download of movies have been deemed in breach of regulations on unfair terms in consumer contracts and therefore not valid.

As previously mentioned, the Italian competition authority has also jurisdiction on the qualification as "unfair" (and therefore null and void) of clauses in Business to Consumer (B2C) agreements and in this circumstance held that the provisions of Ts&Cs of an e-book platform excluding any liability and warranty by the platform provider in relation to the sale of e-books to sold "as it is" and for which liability could arise only in the cases of gross negligence and wilful misconduct were unfair. Indeed, the provisions limiting the possibility of liability claims for contractual breaches to the cases of gross negligence and wilful misconduct were not valid since they were creating an unbalance of the liabilities between the parties.

However, the most interesting part of the decision relates to the qualification of e-books as "consumer goods" for the purposes of the EU Sale of Consumer Goods Directive. On the basis of such qualification, the company managing the e-book platform had to provide the statutory 2 years warranty to customers and therefore the warranty exclusion clauses mentioned above were invalid. This decision is even more interesting as the same authority on a similar case extended the 2 years warranty also to services relating to the download of movies from Internet platforms.

Despite the fact that e-books and movies as any software are licensed rather than sold, according to the authority, the guarantees provided for the sale of consumer goods had to be extended to them giving some guidelines on their qualification in a sector with a very limited number of court precedents. Also, this means that American style e-commerce or software license Ts&Cs excluding any liability will be deemed null and void and consumers shall be informed of their statutory rights.

This decision is likely to have a relevant impact not only on e-commerce contracts but also on software license agreements and any B2C contract. And, as usual if you want to discuss about that feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

Who pays for mistakes in odds?

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 07:00:00 +0000

The Italian gambling authority, AAMS, held that in case of clear errors in odds performed by operators, the bets shall be in any case paid since this is part of the bookmaker's business risk.

It is interesting that in 2012 the Court of Rome held in a dispute concerning a clearly mistaken odd published by an Italian licensed operator that the bet was not valid and players had taken advantage of such mistake which was clearly recognizable by them. Such decision was issued after that the AAMS' commission in charge of sorting disputes on sportsbets had held that the bet had to be paid regardless of the clearly mistaken odd.

If the same commission has now confirmed its old approach despite of the decision of the Court of Rome, it will be interesting to see the reaction from operators. Indeed, the applicable provisions of the Italian civil code are very straight forward: in case of errors on an essential term of a contract (as the odd would be for bets) which are clearly recognizable by the other party (i.e. by players in case of major mistakes in odds) the contract and therefore the bet are not valid with the consequential mere return of the amount bet,

Additionally, if bets placed on clearly mistaken odds were deemed to be valid this would support the conduct of players that clearly took advantage of such mistake. Professional players have system able to immediately identify a mistaken odd and to place relevant bets on that before operators can identify the mistake, and operators in some instances prefer to pay the bets connected to mistaken odds to avoid the costs of a court proceeding, but it is unusual that such circumstance is supported by the regulator.

According to the position of the AAMS commission, in the particular dispute the mistake in the odds was not clearly recognisable as it was not obivous. Also, it was not possible to assess the psicological position of the players when they placed the bet. Unfortunately,from the decision it is not possible to obtain more details on the case, but we will watch the evolution of the matter closely and as usual if you want to discuss the above feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

New Bingo Regulations, the right approach to success?

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:00:00 +0000

AAMS has published the new protocol of communication that will regulate the offering of bingo games under the new regulations which will shortly come into force, but more interestingly AAMS published some FAQs on the future of Italian bingo regulations.

As expected, the general impression is that AAMS is still willing to keep bingo as a very soft game and indeed, apparently it will not be possible for offer pre-seeded jackpots. Also, still to be decided is whether it will be possible to have aggregated jackpots between different halls. However, it will be possible to have guaranteed prizes to be offered regardless of players' contributions and apparently there will not be major restrictions on bingo variations.

Indeed, this will be the major change to be introduced by the new bingo regulations that are now subject to considerable restrictions which currently prevent the offering of bingo games as those available on .COM platforms.

It is not fully clear the reason of restrictions on jackpots and hopefully this limitation will be removed at a later stage. Also, hopefully AAMS will decide to lower the tax regime for bingo games replicating the successful approach followed in Spain with a unique tax regime based on gross profits across different products.

We will watch it closely and in the meantime if you want to discuss about it, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

Mobile payment, what restrictions?

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:32:00 +0000

Mobile payment is more and more in the radar of IT companies and even Apple apparently will launch soon their mobile payment platform. However, what regulatory restrictions are applicable to the after the EU PSD Directive?

In particular, mobile carriers and providers of services are willing to enable their users to pay for the purchase of goods and services through the funds available on their SIM card which in the case of pay-as-you-go phones would also allow to check the amount spent just as occurs in the case of prepaid cards.

However, such solution faces some restrictions as the EU PSD Directive limited the offering of payment services to banks, e-money issuers, payment institutions providing an exemption for "payment transactions executed by means of any telecommunication, digital or IT device, where the goods or services purchased are delivered to and are to be used through a telecommunication, digital or IT device, provided that the telecommunication, digital or IT operator does not act only as an intermediary between the payment service user and the supplier of the goods and services".

However, as far as Italy is concerned, the Bank of Italy considerably limits the scope of such exemption clarifying that it is required, among others, that payment operations relate to the purchase of digital goods or services (i.e. the purchased good is not functional to the usage of services in the real world). Therefore, for instance the purchase of mobile apps and possibly even virtual currency might fall within the scope of the exemption, but a cinema ticket would not.

This restrictive interpretation has recently become more flexible when the Bank of Italy allowed the purchase of bus tickets in Florence through the mobile credit. This new approach might lead to considerable new opportunities in the sector. Also, the term "digital good/service" has no definition and therefore or will be open to different interpretations.

We will see the future of the sector, but n the meantime feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio if you want to discuss the above.

Franchising - disclosure of all information upfront!

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:30:00 +0000

The Italian competition authority sanctioned with a fine of EUR 150,000 the advertising over the Internet of a franchising network of travel agencies as the advertised affiliation price did not include the price for all the services and equipment required by the affiliation network and did not specify that value added tax had to be added to the advertised price.

The Italian competition authority has jurisdiction on unfair commercial practices and misleading advertising whose regulations provide fines up to EUR 500,000 and this decision is interesting since it outlines the overlapping between franchising and advertising regulations.

Indeed, Italian franchising law requires the provision to the franchisee of the franchising network agreement at least 30 days prior to its execution and the defendant had complied with this obligation also disclosing in the agreement all information prescribed in details by Italian franchising law. But the Authority held that in order to preserve the freedom of choice of the recipients of advertising materials a full disclosure of information had to occur as part of the advertising message and it is not relevant that additional information could be gathered at a later stage. Since the advertising message contained only a summary of the costs to be borne by the franchisee, it has been deemed in breach of misleading advertising regulations.

A full disclosure of the information relevant for the franchising affiliation and a full transparency has to be adopted from the first contact with the potential franchisee that is meant to occur through the advertising material and the procedure set forth by franchising laws cannot be deemed exhaustive of the disclosure obligations. Franchising network providers shall be cautious in their relationship with potential partners given the potential fines.

As usual if you want to discuss the above, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

27 websites seized for illegal movie downloading

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:00:00 +0000

The criminal court of Rome seized 27 websites for copyright breach as through such websites it was possible to illegally download the movie A Monster in Paris.

Italian copyright law sanctions with criminal penalties the illegal broadcasting of copyright protected works and the blocking of the access to websites through the filtering of domain names and DNS is becoming more and more a measure adopted by Italian courts against copyright breaches occurring on the Internet and indeed we recently reported that same blocking had been enforced against websites illegally streaming football matches. The seizure of the 27 websites represents the largest seizure of Internet contents performed in a western country.

It is arguable that the DNS blocking is an effective measure since it might be easily by-passed as some of the above mentioned websites have already reacted against the blocking changing their domain name. We will see whether courts will introduce more stringent measures against copyright breaches over the Internet, but at the same time a legal battle is ongoing because some of the seized websites deem disproportionate the measure enacted against them for a single illegal file arguing that the seizure prevented the access to considerable services and contents that on the contrary are legal.

What is your view on the above? E-mail your comments and views to me, Giulio Coraggio.

Bets out of Palinsesto - a step forward

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 20:31:00 +0000

AAMS has just published the draft version of the new protocol of communication PSQF introducing the possibility to offer sportsbetting markets not included in the AAMS' official schedule, the so called palinsesto.

We previously reported that the draft decree allowing operators to offer in addition to the type of bets and events included in the AAMS' official schedule their own customised sportsbetting bets had been submitted to the European Commission. The draft decree has been approved by the European Commission and AAMS is completing the technical developments necessary in order to enable the offering of such games in compliance with Italian technical and regulatory requirements.

This is the reason why the new draft protocol of communication of the data between operators' servers and AAMS' servers for these types of bets has been published and subject to a request of opinions. Operators will have 15 days to submit comments to AAMS and hopefully the regulations will be approved shortly after that.

The coming into force of the decree regulating customised bets represents a massive development for the Italian sportsbetting market that from its launch has been subject to considerable restrictions if it is considered that because of such regulatory restrictions the offering of markets for football by Italian licensed operators is currently around 10% of the markets available on .COM platforms for the same sport.

Such circumstance is also one of the reasons of the size of the Italian black market. Players can find more interesting type of bets and events on .COM platforms and in some cases better odds because of the lower taxation. The hope is that the offering of customised bets by Italian licensed operators will considerably reduce per se the Italian black market increasing the size of the licensed market.

It will be interesting to see the consequences of the launch of these games in the Italian market, but in the meantime feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio, if you want to discuss the above.

Anti-money laundering obligations for banks and gaming operators

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:21:00 +0000

The Bank of Italy has issued indicators of suspicious money laundering conducts with which both banks dealing with gaming operators and gaming operators themselves shall comply.

As previously reported, Italian anti-money laundering law provides specific provisions in relation to the gaming sector and operators are subject to very stringent requirements. In this respect, the new indicators identified by the Bank of Italy shall require the update of the anti-money laundering policy of both banks and operators.

In particular, Italian law provides a very sophisticated system of notification of suspicious conducts to the UIF, the department of the Bank of Italy dedicated to anti-money laundering, through a web functionality and if a bank or a gaming operator does not perform the notification when according to the above mentioned indicators it was supposed to fines between 1% and 40% of the value of each suspicious transaction that had not been notified will be applicable.

The risk is even higher considering that the tax police currently monitoring very closely the compliance of gaming operators with anti-money laundering obligations through audits at their premises.

Given the above, the importance of complying with anti-money laundering obligations should not underestimated and as usual if you want to discuss the matter feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

The end of gaming CTDs?

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 07:34:00 +0000

The Italian Supreme Court issued a decision against a gaming CDT connected to a foreign licensed bookmaker that might lead to interesting developments in the Italian sportsbetting market.

The CTDs are usually Internet cafes connected to the foreign licensed platform of a bookmaker offering games in Italy on the basis of the European Union principle of freedom of services and therefore without holding a local gaming license issued by AAMS and without paying Italian gaming taxes. However, according to the Court none of the decision of the European Court of Justice on the Italian licensing regime held that the regime per se is in contrast with EU principles but the rulings of the ECJ just held that its enforcement has been in some cases discriminatory.

The need to protect consumers and public order behind the Italian licensing regime justifies the exemption to the EU principle of freedom of service since according to the Court it is not possible to rely on checks performed abroad on intermediaries operating in Italy otherwise it would be like stating "that any convicted person might act as intermediary without been subject to any police check" in Italy.

Needless to say that the future of the Italian gaming market will depend also on the approach adopted by courts following such decision. In a period where sportsbetting games are facing a crisis due to the growth of casino and poker games, the ban of CTDs might considerably expand the size of the Italian licensed market.

As usual if you want to discuss about it, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

Bidding process for DTT frequencies

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 10:58:00 +0000

The Italian communications authority has just approved the regulations on the bidding process for the allocation of DTT frequencies (multiplex).

The regulations are the result of a consultation process that involved various stakeholders and the European Commission. According to the new regulations 3 multiplexes will be made available for 20 years. No operator is allowed to hold more than 5 muxes and operators holding 3 or more muxes cannot participate to the bid. Moreover, in order to guarantee a free market competition, new entrants or “small” operators (holding only 1 mux) can bid for all the 3 muxes, while operators holding 2 muxes can bid for 2 of the 3 reserved muxes. Operators active through other platforms can bid for only 1 mux. The Italian Ministry of the Economic Development is now requested to approve the bidding proceeding.

Will this new regulation finally solve the DTT frequencies saga? Feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio, if you want to discuss the topic.

No new taxes on online gaming in Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 08:28:00 +0000

There will be No additional taxes on online gaming in Italy according to what declared by the director general of the Italian gambling authority, Mr. Luigi Magistro, at the online gaming conference organized by the European Social and Economic Committee.

Mr. Magistro took a very wise position stating that the taxation in the online gaming sector needs to be low because this might be the sole effective measure against the competition from unlicensed operators. A low taxation may as a consequence be the most effective measure to push operators to comply with the Italian online gaming regulations.

Additionally, an increase in the taxation in the online sector would not bring relevant advantages to the entries of the State if it is considered that they represent only 2.2% of the tax entries generated from the gaming sector. Therefore, even a potential tax increase would not lead to a major advantage for the Italian Treasury.

Needless to say that this is a very good sign for the Italian online gaming market where rumors of tax increases have always been around. Also, it is good that Mr. Magistro stressed the need to limit as much as possible the competition from unlicensed operators in order to create a regulatory environment where all the operators act according to the same rules. Hopefully this speech will be followed by stringent measures against unlicensed operators.

As usual if you want to discuss more about the above, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.

Possible sanctions for unfair clauses

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:51:00 +0000

The Italian competition authority can declare unfair and therefore null and void clauses in consumer contracts and issue sanctions for the lack of compliance with its orders according to a procedure recently established.

Not only can consumers and consumers' associations challenge clauses in consumers' contracts but also companies themselves will have the right to request a preventive opinion on the "fairness" of some of their contractual clauses. Indeed, according to the Italian Consumers' Code implementing among others the EU Directive on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts clauses that are deemed unfair in standard contracts can be deemed null and void which might considerably damage businesses that relied on such clauses.

Consumers' protection provisions on unfair clauses up until now had been rarely enforced since in most of the cases consumer contracts (such as Ts&Cs of websites, terms of sale of electronic devices and any other type of consumer goods, warranty terms of appliances etc.) have a low value that does not justify the costs of a potential dispute. However, the right granted to consumers to ask for an opinion from the competition authority on contractual clauses at no cost for them grants them a very dangerous "weapon" against businesses that attempt to adopt aggressive contractual structures.

In order to prevent potential issues in a dispute with consumers including the potential negative publicity, businesses will consider to require the scrutiny of the competition authority on their more relevant contractual clauses. Indeed for instance the clauses that are currently under the review of the competition authority relate to the retention of property rights, automatic renewal clauses, warranty terms, applicable laws, liquidated damages/penalties for breach etc.

This is likely to create considerable concerns in B2C transactions and as usual feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio, if you want to discuss.

€ 41 M Financing for IP Projects

noreply@blogger.com (Giulio Coraggio) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:02:00 +0000

The Italian Ministry of the Economic Development made operational the National Fund for the Innovation of € 40.9 million in order to ease the financing of innovative projects based on the industrial enhancement of intellectual property rights.

Small and medium sized companies will be able to see their IP projects financed up to an amount of € 1.5 M for a period of 12 months. This initiative has to be seen as part of the recent initiatives aimed at easing the access to the credit by start-ups which include also the upcoming entrance into force of equity crowdfunding regulations and providing special treatments for start-ups and their incubators.

We cannot ignore that the current Italian Government is trying to do its best to foster the growth of innovative start-ups and therefore Italy is becoming an attractive country for entrepreneurs. In this respect, if you want to know more about that, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.