Chief Executive of online gaming company, Unibet, Petter Nylander, has been detained in Amsterdam by the Dutch police over allegations that the company breached laws in France that protect French betting monopolies.
Although Nylander has been detained, he hasn’t been charged, however, the detention seems to contradict European law which prevents the protectionism of a gaming monopoly and has provoked a strong reaction from Unibet.
In a statement, Unibet said, “Unibet is outraged by France’s total disregard of European Community law aiming to protect domestic commercial gambling monopoly, which is being challenged by the European Commission.”
Unibet and France have had other issues in the past as well. Just recently at this year’s Tour de France, Unibet’s team was banned from competing after race organizers believed its participation would be in breach of French laws that prohibit advertising of foreign gambling companies.
Spokesperson for Unibet, Ragnar Hellenius, said, “We are upset of this unlawful act and harassment against our company and a citizen of Europe and we will take every action possible to bring this matter to justice.”
“This criminalisation of a specific individual is a tactic that we have seen French authorities using before and something we will not tolerate. We take for granted that Petter Nylander will be released immediately,” he concluded.
