October 24, 2007

High Profile Arrest Has French Officials on the Defensive

Who'd have thunk that international incidents could be spawned by internet gambling.

Here's s little from the Gambling Planet story:

The French government on Tuesday distanced itself from the high profile arrest of an internet gambling executive and ordered the case against him to be dropped. Petter Nylander, chief executive of Unibet, was detained on Monday at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on a European arrest warrant issued by a French judge on charges of money laundering and cybercrime.

The arrest was triggered by a commercial complaint by Française des Jeux, which runs the lottery, and PMU, the national horseracing board, who claimed that Unibet had breached their monopoly rights to internet gambling in France. The French government appeared embarrassed by the arrest, which comes as Paris prepares to concede that it has discriminated illegally against online operators to protect its state monopolies.