July 8 (SeeNews) - A Bulgarian court said it has dismissed as unlawful the decision of the State Commission on Gambling (SCG) to suspend the licence of local private betting operator Eurofootball over unpaid debt.
The regulator's decision was issued in significant violation of the rules of administrative procedure and in contradiction to the substantive law, the Sofia Administrative Court said in its ruling published last week.
The SCG had no right to suspend the company's licence over unpaid debts, as there is no enforceable judicial instrument which settles the matter on overdue public receivables yet, the court said.
Furthermore, the gambling authority has offered Eurofootball to provide collateral for the overdue debts. The SCG is in no way entitled to demanding collateral before the obligations of the company are established indisputably, the court noted.
The ruling of the first-instance Sofia Administrative Court can be challenged before the Supreme Administrative Court by July 15.
In March, the gambling regulator said it has suspended the Eurofootball's licence for a period of three months, claiming that the betting operator owes some 329 million levs ($184 million/ 168.2 million euro) in unpaid state fees, including interest, for the period from December 2014 to December 2019. Eurofootball can resume its activities only if it pays its debt to the state within the three-month period, the SCG said at the time.
On its part, Eurofootball argued then that the regulator's decision puts 2,300 employees of the company at risk of losing their jobs, while about 800 point-of-sale partners may lose their source of income.
Eurofootball is linked to Bulgarian businessman Vasil Bozhkov, who was charged in absentia earlier this year with organising a crime group, coercion, blackmail, tax evasion, money laundering and other crimes.
Eurofootball, founded in 1990, offers betting on sports and horse and dog racing.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)