The City of Prague will defend itself in court against another fine from the Office for the Protection of Economic Competition (ÚOHS), issued in connection with the anti-gambling decree, this time from 2018 to 2021. The city will file an administrative lawsuit against the ÚOHS decision to the Regional Court in Brno.
ÚOHS imposed a fine of CZK 2.4 million to the city in December 2022, due to the fact that, in the period from 21 December 2018 to 14 October 2021, it restricted the operation of gambling games to certain places and during limited times.
The city immediately filed an appeal against the office’s decision, but its objections were rejected by the chairman of ÚOHS in September this year, and the fine is therefore final. Prague must pay it by 21 November. The city will now defend itself in court, as Prague council has approved the filing of an administrative lawsuit against the decision on dissolution to the Regional Court in Brno.
“We defend the right of city districts to decide that gambling will not be allowed on their territory at all,” said Adam Zábranský, Prague’s councillor for property, legislation and transparency. “In the area of gambling, Prague respects the principle of subsidiarity, which ÚOHS questions. In the decree for which Prague received a fine, specific places were designated in Prague where gambling can operate. We re-evaluated this approach in the last election period, and today live gambling is allowed in Prague, except for the territories of the city districts that have chosen the “zero tolerance” approach. We think that we have a chance to succeed in court, also because of the decision-making practice of the Constitutional Court and the Ministry of the Interior, which is different from ÚOHS.”
The fine will be paid by the city from gambling revenue. Prague already proceeded in the same way in July of this year, when the ÚOHS chairman refused to reconsider the decision of his office, and thus issued the capital city with a fine of more than CZK 2.5 million for the anti-gambling decree from 2014 to 2018. The city authorities also filed an administrative appeal against this decision to dissolve the lawsuit.
