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

Alber & Geiger was approached by a US chemical company from South Carolina regarding the EU Renewable Energy Directive. The client was increasingly concerned about the diversion of tall oil away from the use in the chemicals sector towards energy production in transport. Tall oil being a pine tree residue from the paper mills is used in both these sectors. The Renewable Energy Directive provided special quotas and incentives for the use of tall oil as a feedstock in transportation fuels leading to price increases and creating distortions in the chemical sector, where tall oil was being used as a replacement for crude oil.

Strategy

Alber & Geiger pushed for amendments that requested to change the Renewable Energy Directive in the sense that it would remove tall oil from the positive list that was benefiting from the EU incentives. We worked with the EU Institutions to also apply the so called cascading use principle to tall oil, meaning that any recycled substance should be used as a raw material rather than for fuel purposes. We further engaged with key lawmakers and select Member States to garner support during the legislative process.

Results

We brought together other industry players and leading associations to form a strong coalition of like-minded players to show that the issue was beyond one single company. Through our engagement we made sure that the cascading use principle is now in the language of the Renewable Energy Directive.

Challenge

The EU-Morocco trade negotiations were about collapse. Our client, the Kingdom of Morocco was in an unpalatable position, propagated by EU outrage regarding Western Sahara. Morocco was regarded as an occupier of the region, that was illegitimately using the natural resources of the invaded territory, to the detriment of the Saharawi people.

Several Members States and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) demanded that, the EU bring an end to the Agriculture Agreement, and the Fisheries Partnership Agreement with Morocco. The resolution on the “Situation in the Western Sahara,” consequently condemned the actions of the Kingdom of Morocco. Protecting the interests of Morocco required us to tackle a heavy burden of proof amid these string convictions within the EU institutions and Member States.

Strategy

Our strategy combined economic, legal and political narratives. Pragmatically, it demonstrated how crucial from an economic standpoint the Agricultural Agreement and Fisheries Partnership were to the EU internal market. It emphasized the tangible value of such agreements to the Saharawi people, while simultaneously showing the intangible nature of the accusations against Morocco. To do so it articulated the legality of Morocco actions through public international law discourse.

It drew on specific Member State and organizational interests in the fishing and agricultural sector while simultaneously recruiting these interests into a targeted media campaign. It assimilated an overarching sentiment that such stabilizing agreements were needed, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. It drifted EU institutional thought processes along their own rational that trade must follow the rule of law. However, it did so by flipping the script, in showing the potential these agreements had for strengthening regional stability and international adherence to the law.

Results

Alber & Geiger was able to facilitate the signing of a new protocol, guiding the Morocco-EU relationship into a new and more dynamic framework. Creating a stable platform for long term sustainable trade relations that are vital to the security of the region. It was our ability to navigated the EU’s multifaceted foreign policy that allowed us to ensure this result for Morocco.