EU taxonomy and AML developments
The growing tension between EU law and the gambling sector: the consequences of EU AML rules & EU taxonomy Philippe Vlamminck and Rob Verbeke outline the existing tensions between EU law and the gambling sector, and give a heads up on some relatively new European Union regulations which could have unintended and potentially damaging consequences for the gambling industry. T here is sometimes a tense relationship between EU rules and the gambling sector. Under the subsidiarity principle, gambling is regulated on the level of the Member States and not by EU law. The Court has repeatedly stated that legislation on games of chance is one of the areas in which there are significant moral, religious and cultural differences between the Member States. This means that Member States are free to set the objectives of their policy on betting and gambling and, where appropriate, to define in detail the level of protection sought. Any restrictive measures that they impose must satisfy the conditions laid down in the case-law of the Court as regards their proportionality 1 . Nevertheless, in principle, the general laws and regulations applicable to other sectors also apply to gambling and the gambling operators. Yet, for several legal instruments there are specific exceptions whereby gambling is excluded from the scope of application of EU rules (e.g. the e-commerce directive 2 ). This tension seems to be heading to new potential points of conflict, whereby European legislative instruments create an unwanted and potentially detrimental effect on the legal gambling business. We will highlight two specific instruments in this regard: 1) the EU taxonomy, and 2) the (4th) AML directive. 1 See e.g. CJEU, 8 September 2009, Case C‑42/07, Liga Portuguesa, EU:C:2009:519. 2 Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of infor- mation society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (‘Directive on electronic commerce’)
IMGL Magazine • July 2022 • 17
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