An April 23, 2026, opinion by the Court of Justice of the European Union’s Advocate General Emiliou in Case C‑683/24 Spielerschutz Sigma is the latest pronouncement from the CJEU in the lengthy EU law skirmish surrounding Malta’s gaming industry. Just a week earlier, on April 16, 2026, the Court confirmed that Member States can prohibit certain online gambling services that are authorized in another Member State. And in January 2026, the Court found that a consumer may rely on their own country’s law when bringing a tort claim against directors of a foreign online gambling operator that does not hold the required license for that market.
This new opinion is not binding on the Court of Justice, which must still render its judgment. But AG Emiliou’s reasoning is a crucial bellwether today, as Maltese gaming companies hold their breath over their ultimate liability for losses incurred on their sites by gamblers resident in EU Member States with more restrictive national gambling laws (primarily Austria and Germany).
In his opinion, AG Emiliou has deliberately grappled with the question of whether Article 56A of the Maltese Gaming Act is compatible with EU law, taking the view that it is not, even though he initially concluded that the request for a preliminary ruling before him was inadmissible.
From the early 2000s, Malta took various steps to establish itself as an attractive hub for the gaming industry, setting up a gaming authority in 2001 and adopting legislation making it the first in the EU to offer a dedicated framework for online gambling. This attracted many gambling companies to set up in Malta, so that the sector now accounts for approximately one-eighth of Malta’s GDP.
Many Maltese‑licensed operators ran centralized platforms from Malta, then targeted players in other EU countries through localized websites (.com domains, language‑ and currency‑specific versions) without always holding a national license in each of those states. In practical terms, a Maltese license seemingly gave operators regulatory credibility, banking and payment access, and an EU legal base from which they could serve multiple Member States, often until or unless those states enforced stricter local licensing or blocking measures.
Eventually, however, this model fuelled significant conflicts: consumer claims and enforcement actions in countries such as Austria and Germany focused on Malta‑licensed operators who had used their Maltese licenses to access those markets remotely, leading to a wave of litigation. German and Austrian claims against Malta‑based gaming companies center on players seeking to recover gambling losses, arguing that Malta‑licensed operators were operating illegally under German and Austrian law and that their contracts are therefore void and refundable.
This then led to the controversy around Article 56A, which was inserted into the Maltese Gaming Act in June 2023. Article 56A is Malta’s controversial “gaming shield” provision: it tells Maltese courts, as a matter of public policy, to block certain foreign lawsuits and judgments against Malta‑licensed gaming operators when those proceedings undermine the legality of services provided under a Maltese Gaming Authority license. The issue is whether this provision is compatible with EU rules on the recognition and enforcement of judgments laid down in Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 (“the Brussels I bis Regulation’).
The facts giving rise to the preliminary reference in Case C‑683/24 are sobering in themselves for those in the legal profession in particular. The reference was sent to Luxembourg by the “Handelsgericht Wien” (Commercial Court in Vienna). Spielerschutz Sigma, the applicant in the national case, is a litigation funder that had been funding actions brought by players domiciled in Austria against operators holding Maltese gambling licenses who had provided online gambling services in Austria without possessing the license required under Austrian law.
Following the introduction of Article 56A into the Maltese Gaming Act, Spielerschutz Sigma sought a legal opinion from a law firm. The law firm advised that the Maltese provision was contrary to EU law and that it couldn’t conceivably be applied by Maltese courts. However, a Maltese court did, in fact, refuse to recognize a foreign judgment, acting in accordance with Article 56A, particularly by refusing to issue garnishee orders against gaming companies in respect of claims which fall within the ambit of the said provision.
Spielerschutz Sigma then brought an action in the Commercial Court in Vienna against the law firm seeking reimbursement of the fees it had paid for what it considered to be bad legal advice. It asked the Viennese court to find the law firm liable for all future losses arising from the legal proceedings related to these cases.
The referring court asked if the Maltese provision is compatible with EU rules on the recognition and enforcement of judgments laid down in Regulation (EU) 1215/2012. AG Emiliou found the Austrian court’s referral inadmissible, since the questions it had asked of the CJEU were not actually necessary to resolve the domestic dispute. The question to be decided in the national litigation, in the AG’s view, was whether the law firm’s assessment was diligent at the time it was made.
Nevertheless, AG Emiliou still took the time to unpick the question referred by the Austrian court, for the event that the ECJ does find the preliminary reference admissible, and, presumably, because it is clear that the question of the compatibility of Article 56A with EU law is the key issue at the heart of the wider debacle.
Under Article 36(1) of the Brussels I bis Regulation, ‘a judgment given in a Member State shall be recognized in the other Member States without any special procedure being required’. The enforcement obligation is found in Article 39 of the Regulation.
However, in special circumstances, Member States may legitimately refuse to recognize foreign judgments. Article 45(1) of the Regulation provides that ‘the recognition of a judgment shall be refused … if such recognition is manifestly contrary to public policy in the Member state addressed’.
The Maltese Government has been seeking to rely on that derogation. It has been argued that the foreign restitution claims amount to an abuse of the freedom to receive services guaranteed by Article 56 TFEU and are founded on national gambling laws which are, in its view, ‘unjustifiably restrictive’ within the meaning of that provision. The recognition or enforcement of such judgments in Malta would therefore entail a manifest infringement of Article 56 TFEU, which forms part of Malta’s ‘public policy’.
The Advocate General noted that it is in principle for each Member State to define the content of its ‘public policy,’ but that discretion is not unlimited. Derogation from the general rules on recognition and enforcement laid down in Articles 36 and 39 of the Brussels I bis Regulation, Article 45(1)(a) must be interpreted ‘strictly’, and that recourse to the ‘public policy’ clause ‘is to be had only in exceptional cases’, lest the objective of the free movement of judgments pursued by that instrument be undermined.
The Advocate General concluded that Article 56A of the Maltese Gaming Act clearly exceeds those limits, and also reiterated the principle that the courts of a Member State may not refuse recognition or enforcement of a judgment delivered in another Member State, based on the ‘public policy’ clause, solely because they consider that EU law, including Article 56 TFEU, has been incorrectly applied in that judgment[1].
In his view, the Maltese legislature “could not legitimately proceed, in an abstract and general manner, as Article 56A does, on the premise that any judgment in civil and commercial matters which treats the services provided by a Maltese-licensed operator as unlawful in a Member State, even though those services are lawful under Maltese law”[2].
The AG pointed out that Member States enjoy broad discretion to regulate gambling services provided on their territory under their respective laws [3]. The ‘country of origin’ principle does not apply in the field of online gambling. In the absence of EU harmonization in this field, Member states are not obliged to recognize gambling licenses issued by other Member States[4].
Lastly, the Advocate General noted the fact that the enforcement of certain foreign judgments may entail serious economic consequences for a national operator, an industry, or even the Member State addressed, and that this does not justify recourse to the ‘public policy’ clause laid down in Article 45(1)(a) of the Brussels I bis Regulation[5].
For all these reasons, the AG found that the derogation provided for in Article 45(1)(a) and Article 46 does not justify Malta’s Article 56A.
The Court of Justice’s judgment in this case will be highly anticipated. It will likely be delivered before the end of 2026 or early in 2027. If the Court agrees with AG Emiliou that the preliminary ruling reference is inadmissible, it will not have to decide the question of whether Article 56A is compatible with EU law. That would buy the Maltese gaming industry – and the Maltese government – some more time.
But that’s likely not going to be the end of the story.
More developments are expected from the Maltese Courts as the Civil Court and the Court of Appeal, in their superior jurisdiction, as the situation continues to evolve. The Courts consider requests for further references to the European Courts of Justice in respect of the application of the public policy exception to the enforcement of judgments delivered in other EU member states.
Furthermore, the European Commission seems poised to put the question firmly back before the Court if the Court doesn’t decide the issue in Case C-683/24 and Malta doesn’t repeal Article 56A.
The Commission opened infringement proceedings against Malta in June 2025 on this very subject. Malta has responded, trying to justify its actions. It would seem that at present, the Commission is waiting for the Court’s judgment in Case C-683/24. If the Court doesn’t settle the question, then, and the Commission remains unconvinced by Malta’s attempts to justify Article 56A, it can issue a reasoned opinion against Malta – taking inspiration from AG Emilio’s April 2026 opinion. If Malta refuses to repeal Article 56A even after that and remains in breach of EU law, the Commission will have to refer the island nation to the Luxembourg Court.
Some 90 to 95 percent of infringement proceedings against Member States are resolved before they reach the Court. But if time is going to help its gaming industry and its economy, the Maltese government may decide to fight all the way. An ultimate verdict in that scenario might then only come two to four years from now.
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[1] C‑681/13, EU: C:2015:471, Paragraph 49 “It must next be recalled that the court of the State in which recognition is sought may not, without challenging the aim of Regulation No 44/2001, refuse recognition of a judgment emanating from another Member State solely on the ground that it considers that national or EU law was misapplied in that judgment On the contrary, it must be considered that, in such cases, the system of legal remedies established in every Member State, together with the preliminary ruling procedure provided for in Article 267 TFEU, affords a sufficient guarantee to individuals (see, to that effect, judgment in Apostolides, C-420/07, EU: C:2009:271, paragraph 60 and the case-law cited).”
[2] OPINION OF ADVOCATE GENERAL EMILIOU, Case C‑683/24, Paragraph 97
[3] 1994, Schindler, C‑275/92, EU:C:1994:119, paragraph 60 and 61
[4] OPINION OF ADVOCATE GENERAL EMILIOU, Case C‑683/24, Paragraph 100
[5] flyLAL-Lithuanian Airlines, 2014, Case C-302/13 paragraphs 56 to 58
