18.4.2016

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 136/15

(Case C-49/16)

(2016/C 136/20)

Language of the case: Hungarian

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Unibet International Limited

Defendant: Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal Központi Hivatala

Questions referred

1.Must Article 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘the TFEU’) be interpreted as precluding a national measure in accordance with which the legislation of a Member State which, at the time of issue of a call for tenders for the award of a concession or of acceptance of a tender submitted in order to obtain such a concession, as the case may be, guarantees the theoretical possibility that any operator fulfilling the legal requirements — including an operator established in another Member State — may obtain the concession for the provision of non-liberalised online games of chance, by virtue either of a public call for tenders or of the submission of a tender, with the result that the Member State in question is not actually calling for tenders for the award of the concession and the service provider likewise, in practice, has no opportunity of submitting a tender, and yet the authorities of the Member State declare that the service provider infringed legal rules by providing the service without holding a licence based on the concession and impose on that provider the administrative penalty provided for in the legislation (temporary blocking of access and the imposition of a fine in the event of repeated infringements)?

2.Does Article 56 TFEU prevent a Member State from introducing provisions of higher rank, from the point of view of domestic law, that offer operators of online games of chance the theoretical possibility of providing online games of chance on a cross-border basis, with the result that, for want of any lower-ranking implementing provisions in the Member State, those operators cannot in fact obtain the administrative licences necessary for the provision of the service?

3.In so far as the court hearing the main proceedings may declare, in the light of the answers given to the foregoing questions, that the Member State’s measure is contrary to Article 56 TFEU, is that court acting in a manner compatible with EU law if it considers to be contrary to Article 56 TFEU not only the infringement of legal rules found by the decisions of the authorities of the Member State, on the ground that the service was provided without a licence, but also the administrative penalty imposed for that infringement (temporary blocking of access and fine)?