EN Official Journal of the European Union C 98/4

Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber) of 16 February 2012 (references for a preliminary ruling from the Corte Suprema di Cassazione — Italy) — Criminal proceedings against Marcello Costa (C-72/10), Ugo Cifone (C-77/10)

(Joined Cases C-72/10 and C-77/10) (1)

(Freedom of establishment - Freedom to provide services - Betting and gaming - Collection of bets on sporting events - Licensing requirement - Consequences of an infringement of European Union law in the awarding of licences - Award of 16 300 additional licences - Principle of equal treatment and the obligation of transparency - Principle of legal certainty - Protection of holders of earlier licences - National legislation - Mandatory minimum distances between betting outlets - Whether permissible - Cross-border activities analogous to those engaged in under the licence - Prohibition under national legislation - Whether permissible)

2012/C 98/05

Language of the case: Italian

Referring court

Corte Suprema di Cassazione

Parties to the main proceedings

Marcello Costa (C-72/10), Ugo Cifone (C-77/10)

Re:

Reference for a preliminary ruling — Corte Suprema di Cassazione — Freedom of movement of persons — Freedom of establishment — Freedom to provide services — Activity consisting in the collection of bets — National legislation making the exercise of that activity conditional upon police authorisation and a licence — Protection accorded to persons who obtained authorisation and licences under award procedures which unlawfully excluded other operators from the same sector — Whether compatible with Articles 43 EC and 49 EC

Operative part of the judgment

1. Articles 43 EC and 49 EC and the principles of equal treatment and effectiveness must be interpreted as precluding a Member State which, in breach of European Union law, has excluded a category of operators from the award of licences to engage in a particular economic activity and which seeks to remedy that breach by putting out to tender a significant number of new licences, from protecting the market positions acquired by the existing operators, by providing inter alia that a minimum distance must be observed between the establishments of new licence holders and those of existing operators.

2. Articles 43 EC and 49 EC must be interpreted as precluding the imposition of penalties for engaging in the organised activity of collecting bets without a licence or police authorisation on persons who are linked to an operator which was excluded, in breach of European Union law, from an earlier tendering procedure, even following the new tendering procedure intended to remedy that breach of European Union law, in so far as that tendering procedure and the subsequent award of new licences have not in fact remedied the exclusion of that operator from the earlier tendering procedure.

3. It follows from Articles 43 EC and 49 EC, the principle of equal treatment, the obligation of transparency and the principle of legal certainty that the conditions and detailed rules of a tendering procedure such as that at issue in the cases before the referring court and, in particular, the provisions concerning the withdrawal of licences granted under that tendering procedure, such as those laid down in Article 23(2)(a) and (3) of the model contract, must be drawn up in a clear, precise and unequivocal manner, a matter which it is for the referring court to verify.

(1) OJ C 100, 17.4.2010.