EUROPEAN STATE LOTTERIES AND TOTO ASSOCIATION

26
Report legal seminar Porto 28 – 30 May 2008
To everyone’s satisfaction the legal seminar
this spring was held in the charming
city of Porto. Despite some rain, the seminar
was again a big success, not only because
of the magnificent location and the
very pleasant environment. Many thanks
to the Santa Casa da Misericordia de Lisboa
for hosting a terrific seminar.
After a most welcome port wine (what
else ?!) in the sky bar of our exquisite
hotel and a nice dinner on Wednesday
evening, we were ready for the kick off of
the seminar on Thursday morning.
The meeting was opened by Mr. Vitor
Porto, the Managing Director of the Santa
Casa da Misericordia de Lisboa, emphasizing
the key issues lotteries have to
deal with in the current legal and political
environment. Mr. Porto considered it
to be a great honour to be able to host a
EL legal seminar on this very crucial moment
in time.
Afterwards the Chairman, Mr. Tjeerd
Veenstra was happy to introduce his new
concept of this legal seminar, thereby
thanking all the members for their contribution
with regard to the country briefings
handed in before the seminar.
The real work started on Thursday morning
with a brand new item on the agenda :
the collection and sharing of data by EL’s.
Pernille Sonne announced the creation of
a new legal survey that will be finalised
soon and will amongst others gather legal
data on the issues the different members
are currently dealing with in the framework
of infringement cases launched by
the Commission against several member
states. This aims at supplementing the
legal database on the EL’s web site. Jean
Jørgensen – alias the numbers man, as he
P AN RAMA
Workshops
called himself – presented to us the new
European Lotteries Information Sharing
Extended (ELISE), which will enable
EL and its members to supply statistics
to support the key messages that are
brought forward in the legal and political
debate. The EL General Delegate, Mr.
Rupert Hornig, rightly urged the members
to provide the association with data
on all key issues, in order to strengthen
its position on the European arena and
back up the legal and political arguments
put forward by EL. The strategic value of
data is indeed the basis of each EL position.
Next on the program were the legal developments
with regard to the numerous
pending and new preliminary referrals,
presented by EL Legal Advisors, Mrs
Annick Hubert and Mr. Philippe Vlaemminck.
Special focus went to the recent
hearing in the Portuguese preliminary
case, and the specific legal arguments
that could be developed in upcoming cases.
This was followed by an overview of
the status of the different infringement
cases the Commission launched against
several member states and an assessment
of the common items they address.
Traditionally we had an extensive round
table whereby each member (per country)
had the opportunity to share the
national developments concerning regulation,
court cases and specific legal concerns
with their colleagues. Like in the
past this has proven to be a very effective
source of information about what’s going
on in each member state.
The final presentations of the day made
by Mr Jean Jørgensen and Mr Rupert
Hornig, EL’s General Delegate in charge
of public affairs in Brussels, were providing
the lawyers an overview of the
economic position of a few “competitors”
and the political opponents and allies.
Economics and public affairs are indeed
a very different matter than legal affairs
and in particular for lawyers not their
normal piece of cake. Mr. R. Hornig explained
that these items were of strategic
importance in the EU arena.