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I previously reported that Italian videolottery operators had been offered with the option to settle the massive fines issued against them through the payment of 20% of their value. The term for the payment expired and it appears that only some of them can now relax on the beach…
Italian videolottery operators had been convicted in 2011 to the payment of fines as a consequence of disconnections of their AWP machines from the servers of the gambling regulator, but pending the appeal proceeding against such fines, the Parliament had granted them the opportunity to settle such fines paying an amount that was eventually reduced to 20% of the fines initially issued. This opportunity still obliged companies like Sisal for instance to pay over € 50 million, SNAI over € 40 million and in the case of the largest Italian AWP operator B Plus more than € 169 million.
While the initial reaction from the industry was that the operators were not willing to pay such amount as they relied on the weak arguments of the court decision through which the fines had been issued that could be overturned in the appeal proceeding, then – according to the gaming journal GiocoNews – only GTech (Lottomatica), Sisal, Cirsa, Cogetech, Snai and Gamenet decided to pay the settled fines and consequently terminate the dispute.
With reference to Gmatica, Codere, Hbg and B Plus, they will have to face the uncertainty of an appeal proceeding which might lead to a considerable cost saving if this is successful for them, but also risks to end up with a decision that confirms the intial fines which in the case of B Plus would be € 845 million plus interests.
It will be interesting to monitor the strategy of these companies whose decision not to opt for the settlement might be due to different reasons. Also, it will be interesting to see whether the debts accrued by the operators which settled the fines will entail potential M&A transactions which could lead to new investments.
As usual, if you want to discuss the above, As usual, feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio (giulio.coraggio@gmail.com), to discuss. And follow me on Twitter, Google+ and become one of my friends on LinkedIn.
Image courtesy of Flickr by Moyan Brenn
