The case dates back to July 2023, when the SGA ordered Zimpler to stop providing payment services using BankID to gambling operators that do not hold a Swedish licence.
The regulator argued that facilitating payments to unlicensed companies effectively promoted illegal gambling and undermined Sweden’s regulated market.
The SGA stressed that BankID is an e-identification service exclusively used by Swedish customers and maintained that the gambling companies in question were targeting the Swedish market.
The regulator therefore ordered Zimpler to cease providing its services to unlicensed operators and warned that failure to comply could result in a SEK25m (€2.1m) fine.
However, Zimpler later decided to challenge the decision in the Administrative Court, which ruled in May 2024 that the authority had no legal basis for its decision.
The court pointed out that while Zimpler’s services were used by unlicensed operators, the mere presence of BankID was not sufficient to determine that these operators were specifically targeting Swedish consumers.
Instead, a broader assessment — including the use of Swedish language, currency, and marketing strategies — would be necessary to establish such intent.
The SGA subsequently appealed the ruling, but the Court of Appeal now upheld the lower court’s decision, concluding that the Swedish Gambling Act lacks clarity regarding “what is required for a gambling company to be considered targeting Sweden.”
This legal ambiguity, the court determined, meant there was no justification for the regulator’s injunction against Zimpler.
“In any case, the Gambling Authority has not shown that there was illegal gambling, nor that Zimpler has promoted such. The appeal is therefore rejected,” the court concluded.…Read more by Sonja Lindenberg
