Home / Poker News November 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – Spanish Court Rules in Favor of PokerStars
The Poker Grapevine – Spanish Court Rules in Favor of PokerStars
Posted by: James Carter. - Tue, 2012-11-20 10:28
PokerStars have scored a massive legal win the other day when a Barcelona court passed a ruling, declaring PokerStars’ operation in the country since 2001 legal. The site has been bogged down in legal issues in the country, despite the fact that it managed to pick up a license which allows it to legally operate now. The problem-part of the equation was the period stretching from 2001 – when
PokerStars first began offering real money games to Spanish
poker players – up until the time when they managed to secure their license. The site was prepared to pay damages to the Spanish state, but that obviously won’t be a problem now.
The corporate entity which filed the above said lawsuit against the
online poker operator was Codere, a land-based gambling giant, concerned with online companies being granted access to a market it had previously dominated. Codere even sought injunctions against several online poker operators – among them PokerStars – in order to completely prevent them from accessing the newly regulated Spanish market.
According to the above said Spanish court ruling, the site’s operations before the acquiring of the license couldn’t be considered illegal since there were no rules and laws in place back then, thus the site did not infringe any Spanish laws.
According to PokerStars’ Group General Counsel, Paul Telford, the ruling comes to confirm the legal advice given to the company during the years running up to the regulated market.
In other news: according to IGT CEO Patti Hart, not much progress can be expected on the issue of legal online poker in the US for the next 12 months. While IGT has secured a Nevada license, the limited nature of the player-pool available there means that the US market will remain largely irrelevant.
