European Gaming Lawyer magazine Autumn 2015 | Page 10

A promise for the future
The National Gambling Office is welcoming
the visitors of its website with a promise. Or
should we call it a threat?
“Please note that after the expiry of the 90
days provided by law, as period in which the
operators may submit documents and make
payment of the amounts due to the Romanian
state for operating from 24 December 2010,
to comply with the amnesty period provided
for by art.II par.8 of Law no.124/2015
approving Government Emergency Ordinance
no.92/2014 regulating fiscal measures and
amendment of legislation, which amends
GEO no.77/2009, the access from Romania

public authorities, and is part of the national
defence system).
This bold step is being aggressively
criticized by the major local associations and
organizations aimed to protect the human
rights which claim that the fundamental
problem of blocking measures at the ISP
level is that they can be considered as a type
of censorship of online content, which raises
serious concerns on human rights issues,
freedom of speech in particular. They also
claim that the implementation of such a
website blocking system means that the tools
for Internet censorship will be created and
deployed, and it would be extremely easy

We are still to learn how the authorities will
put in practice this rather unprecedented
approach, and what the consequences of
taking these actions will be
to domains that offer gambling or to
affiliates domains that do not meet the legal
requirements, will be restricted, and criminal
proceedings will be initiated against those
who trespassed the Romanian law, to recover
the amounts due and to bring to justice all
those responsible, both in Romania and
abroad.”
We are still to learn how the authorities
will put in practice this rather unprecedented
approach, and what the consequences of
taking these actions will be.
As a first step, the regulator has already
blacklisted 48 operators (full list available at
http://www.onjn.gov.ro/home/lista-neagra)
and has instructed all internet service
providers to block access to their websites,
and redirect all traffic to an IP address that
is publicly known to belong to the Special
Telecommunications Service (the central
specialized structure which organizes and
coordinates the activities in the special
telecommunications field for the Romanian

10 | European Gaming Lawyer | Autumn Issue | 2015

to expand the censorship measures to other
subjects and other fields.
What’s next
While the (extended) standstill period
for the Norms for implementation of the
legislation in the gaming filed has elapsed in
early August, such has not yet been approved
by the Government. Hopefully, this will
happen soon.
In the meantime, a new relevant
standstill period has started to run when
the Government has notified technical
norms related to bot ۛ[