CJEU Rules on European Account Preservation Orders in Cross-Border Gambling Dispute

Author: Ann Bugeja

European Account Preservation Orders (EAPOs) continue to play an important role in cross-border enforcement proceedings within the European Union. A recent Court of Justice of the European Union judgement provides further guidance on how courts may assess enforcement risks, particularly in disputes involving gambling operators in Malta.  The ruling further highlights how the EAPOs may operate where creditors face challenges enforcing claims across jurisdictions.

Mr Green Limited, a Malta-based online gambling operator licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority, was ordered by an Austrian court in late 2021 to refund an Austrian-resident player more than €60,000 in gambling losses. The refund order arose because Mr Green did not hold a licence under Austria’s Gambling Act (Glücksspielgesetz), rendering the gambling contract null and void under Austrian law. The judgment became final and enforceable on 13th April 2022, after the company’s appeal was dismissed.

Mr Green did not comply with the judgment. In February 2024, the player applied to the Landesgericht für Zivilrechtssachen Wien (Regional Court for Civil Matters, Vienna) for a European Account Preservation Order (“EAPO”) under Regulation (EU) No 655/2014, targeting Mr Green’s bank accounts in Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, and Sweden.

The player alleged a real risk of asset dissipation, relying on two principal circumstances. First, following earlier Austrian judgments ordering it to refund other players, Mr Green had terminated its commercial relationship with its Austrian payment service provider in 2021, suggesting a pattern of reorganising its financial arrangements to frustrate enforcement. Second, since June 2023, Maltese law, specifically Article 56A of the Maltese Gaming Act, introduced by Act No XXI of 2023 prohibits the enforcement of foreign judgments against Malta-licensed gambling operators on public-policy grounds, effectively shielding assets held in Malta from creditors.

The Austrian court of first instance had rejected the EAPO application on the basis that the judgment was over three years old and urgency could not be inferred from the facts. On appeal, the Landesgericht referred the following question to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU:

Is Article 7(1) of Regulation (EU) No 655/2014 to be interpreted as meaning that action taken by the debtor three years or more previously and/or obstacles to enforcement of the judgment in the Member State of the debtor are not to be taken into account?

The Court’s Judgment

The Fourth Chamber of the Court of Justice, following the Opinion of Advocate General Emiliou delivered on 30th October 2025, ruled that the court before which an EAPO application is brought may carry out an overall assessment of all the circumstances relied on by the creditor in order to determine whether there is a real risk that, without such an order, the debtor might impede enforcement of the claim or make it substantially more difficult.

In particular, the Court held that:

(a) Conduct by the debtor predating the EAPO application by a number of years may be taken into account when assessing the urgency of the order. Article 7(1) of the EAPO Regulation does not impose a temporal limitation on the circumstances that a court may consider. Past conduct may remain relevant to the assessment of current risk, particularly where it forms part of a pattern of behaviour tending to frustrate enforcement.

(b) The existence, in the Member State in which the debtor is established, of a law capable of impeding the enforcement of the claim concerned may also be taken into account. The assessment of risk is not confined to the debtor’s own acts; legislative developments in the debtor’s jurisdiction that could shield assets from cross-border enforcement are relevant circumstances in the overall analysis.

This judgment is of particular importance in the context of the ongoing dispute between Malta and several EU Member States over the enforcement of gambling-related judgments. Malta’s Article 56A of the Gaming Act, which entered into force in June 2023, has been the subject of an infringement procedure launched by the European Commission in June 2025 (INFR(2025)2100), which contends that the provision violates Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 (Brussels I Recast) by systematically preventing the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments against Malta-licensed operators.

While the Court did not directly rule on the compatibility of Article 56A with EU law in this case, its interpretation of the EAPO Regulation effectively permits creditors to use protective measures where such legislative obstacles exist. The ruling confirms that the EAPO framework can serve as a practical tool for claimants facing enforcement barriers in the debtor’s home jurisdiction, thereby limiting the effectiveness of national legislation designed to shield operators from cross-border claims.

The judgment should also be read alongside the Court’s earlier ruling in Wunner (C-77/24), which confirmed that Austrian courts have jurisdiction over claims by Austrian players against Malta-licensed operators and that Austrian law governs the substance of such disputes. Together, these decisions significantly strengthen the position of consumers seeking to recover gambling losses from operators licensed in other Member States.