Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunale di Salerno (Italy) lodged on 16 November 2016 — Criminal proceedings against Alfonso Consalvo

(Case C-582/16)

Language of the case: Italian

Referring court

Tribunale di Salerno

Party to the main proceedings

Alfonso Consalvo

By order of 4 April 2017 the Court (Seventh Chamber) held that:

Articles 49 and 56 TFEU and the principles of equal treatment and effectiveness must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation on betting and gaming, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which provides for the organisation of a new call for tenders for the award of licences with a shorter period of validity than that of the licences awarded in the past on account of the reorganisation of the system through the alignment of licence expiry dates.

Articles 49 and 56 TFEU must be interpreted as precluding a restrictive national provision, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which requires a licensee of a betting and gambling service to transfer, free of charge, on the cessation of business as a result of the expiry of the final term of the licence, the rights to use tangible and intangible assets which he owns and which constitute his network for the management and collection of bets, in so far as that restriction goes beyond what is necessary to attain the objective actually pursued by that provision, which is for the referring court to verify.

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