Prague will file an appeal against the decision of the ÚOHS and the fine for errors in the lottery decree
The capital will file an appeal against the December decision of the Office for the Protection of Economic Competition (ÚOHS), which fined the city 1.27 million crowns for errors in the lottery ordinance. The city considers the decision to be incorrect and unreviewable, said municipality spokesman Vít Hofman today.
The ÚOHS fines the city due to errors in the ordinances regulating gambling from 2018 to 2021. Last October, the capital was fined 2.7 million crowns for the same offense, when the previous fine applied to the years 2012 to 2018. Even this fine is not yet final and Prague has already filed a dissolution against it.
“Through a legal representative, we received the decision of the ÚOHS on December 19, 2022, and we will file an appeal against it, as it is considered incorrect and unreviewable,” Hofman said today.
For the most part, this is a fine for the regulation of address systems according to the already canceled generally binding decrees of the capital. Prague has been fined repeatedly for this regulation, which has already been abolished, when the factually identical state of affairs was divided into two administrative proceedings by the ÚOHS procedure for formal reasons. “Even against the transitional decision received in October 2022, the legal representatives of the capital city filed an appeal. In the case of the last decision received, it will be forwarded,” Hofman said.
The new fine also applies to the ordinance valid from January 2021, which, however, introduced a complete ban on technical games throughout the city after the system of addresses. The ordinance prohibits live games only in city districts that have completely banned gambling. The ÚOHS complains that the selection of addresses, or city districts, was not made on the basis of objective, non-discriminatory and previously known criteria. The municipality does not agree with this, because according to it, the office did not take into account the reasons that led the city districts to introduce zero tolerance for gambling. “The capital does not agree with that, and therefore against the decision according to the breakdown,” Hofman added.
About a dozen town halls and municipal authorities were fined for the procedure in the past, the fines usually ranged in the order of hundreds of thousands. Děčín, Karlovy Vary, Česká Lípa or Varnsdorf received fines in the past. (ČTK)