Challenge

Our client, a Lottery Association, was faced with a network of monopolistic EU Member State laws and regulations that impeded the ability of its members – all private lottery operators – to exercise EU market freedoms. Alber & Geiger was enlisted to steer the developing legal framework in the field of gambling law and tear down restrictions of private lotteries in Europe. The challenge was to politically link the freedom of establishment with cross border lotteries based on the CJEU’s decisions on gambling freedom.

Strategy

The strategy was built upon the respected Opinion of our Chairman on the Gambelli case when he was a Advocate General at the CJEU. The Opinion was used as a roadmap for judicial and legislative change during this seminal mandate. It articulated the narrow circumstances where a restriction on freedom of establishment would be justifiable by general interest concerns.

The strategy was structured on all levels according to the integral components of the Opinion. It utilized the intellectual resources of our firm to co-ordinate the legislative dialogue in a direction that facilitated the creation of a EU wide free gambling market. We provided components of the machinery as well as oiling the cogs of law reform.

Results

We provided long term, fixed judicial capital for our client and legislative change. Due to the ongoing successful execution of our strategy, recent judgments of the CJEU with respect to German and Austrian gambling restrictions have been echoing the Opinion.

The CJEU now professes that in order to justify monopolistic state gambling regulations legislation must “ensure a particularly high level of protection” and a “coherent” gambling market. There must now be specific and narrow circumstances to legitimize curtailments to the freedom of establishment in the gambling market. This CJEU strategy must now be followed by the European Commission when checking EU Member States’ gambling restrictions.

Challenge

Dynamic currency conversion (DCC) is a currency exchange service that enables customers to pay in their home currency or in local currency according to their choice. It is offered at ATMs and credit card transactions in shops. The service providers had raised concerns over the card scheme behavior of credit card companies aimed at limiting competition in currency conversion services across several jurisdictions, including in the European Union.

They contacted Alber & Geiger to provide political support with the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition on their repeated complaints over card schemes’ excessive rules, fees and compliance regimes. Moreover, the companies relied on Alber & Geiger to help them identify political avenues to raise their concerns in the European Union, via regulatory and legislative paths, in parallel to their competition channel.

Strategy

From the outset, we created a strategy that focused on three works streams: political support into the complaint with DG Comp, advocacy with lawmakers and officials to raise awareness of DCC and highlight concerns against credit card schemes, and finally, to build support with merchant, consumer and other sectorial associations that are affected by currency exchange services. 

Results

Our team was able to raise awareness of the situation on currency exchange services, informing officials and politicians on the differences between the model offered by the credit cards, and that offered by the DCC providers, putting the emphasis on the DCC currency exchange service that brings more transparency and consumer choice. Simultaneously, through regular exchanges with lawmakers we have laid the foundation for support for our amendments on the ongoing EU legislation on the cross border payment regulation and the payment service directive. Finally, we managed to shift alliances in support of the issues highlighted by DCC providers.     

Challenge

Bulgarian MET Real Estate sought our help vis-à-vis EU state aid and environmental politics. MET planned a development located in an area protected by the EU Nature Directives, having obtained the construction permits through the land swapping laws, common in Bulgaria as in other former Communist countries. Alber & Geiger had to convince the European Commission that there was no illegal state aid in the aftermath of Bulgaria’s EU accession.

Strategy

Our methodology assimilated policy and law into a subtle and meticulously engineered lobbying strategy. It practically depictured to Commission’s experts that a resolution could be found which did not violate state aid law or inhibit Bulgaria’s legitimate development goals.

It used the length and breadth of EU policy fields to put the situation on a macro-European policy context. It relied on the socio-economic dynamics of transition in the Bulgarian property market, and subsumed this framework into consciousness of the European Commission’s policy.

Results

Ultimately we were able to get the Commission, the Bulgarian Government and MET Real Estate, to agree on a settlement that would benefit the internal market and the development needs of the Bulgarian tourism industry. We protected our client from a potentially non-empathetic knee-jerk reaction by the European Commission, which would have had wider implications on the economic health of the region.