Dr. Arthur Stadler, attorney-at-law at the Vienna-based law firm Brandl & Talos, explains the Austrian casino licence tender process

Why is the Austrian government putting the licences out to tender?

In September 2010, the Court of Justice of the EU issued its judgement on the Austrian case C-64/08, Engelmann. There, the CJEU held inter alia that “the total absence of transparency” when granting the licences to Austria’s de facto monopolist, Casinos Austria, was contrary to EU law. Austria subsequently amended its Gaming Act in 2010 and obliged the licence granting authority, the Austrian Ministry of Finance, to grant licences in a “transparent and non-discriminatory manner”.

In the course of this amendment, the Austrian legislator also extended the number of casino licences from 12 to 15, introduced a new licence for poker casinos and adapted provisions concerning the licensing procedure for the casino licences and the single lottery licence.

How will the process work?

The amended Gaming Act, which came into force in July 2010, did not provide for a specific tendering timetable. However, six of 12 casino licences granted to CA would already expire on December 31, 2012, while the other six licences expire on December 31, 2015. Therefore, the MoF started the first public offer for the first six casino licences in August 2011, and for the other six licences in December.

The so called ‘Stadtpaket’ combines the licences for the urban locations in the cities Bregenz, Graz, Innsbruck, Linz, Salzburg and Vienna, which may only be awarded together to one licensee. The future licensee is obliged to operate all six locations of the Stadtpaket, starting from January 1, 2013. The licences expiring in 2015 are also to be awarded collectively to one licensee in the so-called ‘Landpaket’. The public search for interested parties for this package started in December 2011. The latter package combines the locations in rural areas of the Austrian provinces Niederösterreich, Salzburg, Vorarlberg, Kärnten and even two locations in Tirol, which have to be operated from January 1, 2016.

In addition, three individual licences will be granted, two in Vienna and one in Lower Austria, with their tender process to start in the first quarter of 2012. While 12 of the 15 casino licences will only be awarded in two packages, in total only five interested parties can be granted the 15 licences in the end. Firstly, there seems no legal basis justifying such a bundling of licences. Secondly, the bundling is not “consistent and systematic” and may therefore violate EU law.

This interview can be read in full in the February 2012 issue of InterGaming magazine.