Ladbrokes withdraws lawsuit against Norway

[The Buzz]

Buzzy hopes not to be infringing on JonOfFinsbury's territory, but we haven't seen this posted yet. According to eGaming Review, British bookmaker Ladbrokes has dropped a five-year legal action against Norway’s state monopoly.

Just last week, a EU court upheld Portugal's sports-betting monopoly in a legal battle with bwin.

From EGR:

The British bookmaker last week took the decision to drop its legal battle against Norwegian authorities, which began when its application for a betting licence was turned down in June 2004, after the European Court of Justice (ECJ)’s last week ruled against Bwin in favour of Portuguese state-run monopoly La Santa de Misericordi on the grounds that protecting a state monopoly was necessary to allow Portugal to combat fraud.

Ladbrokes Nordic chief executive Lasse Dilschmann said: “the Casa verdict shows how difficult it is to get a monopoly tried under EU law, as it always ends up that the monopoly can be justified in terms of player protection and fraud prevention. We thought we could run into the same trouble as Bwin in Portugal, and that was a reason we backed out of the legal case in Norway.”

[JonOfFinsbury]

[Shaun O'neill]

My money is on Jon....

Shaun