Challenge

Our client, a Lottery Association, was faced with a network of monopolistic EU Member State laws and regulations that impeded the ability of its members – all private lottery operators – to exercise EU market freedoms. Alber & Geiger was enlisted to steer the developing legal framework in the field of gambling law and tear down restrictions of private lotteries in Europe. The challenge was to politically link the freedom of establishment with cross border lotteries based on the CJEU’s decisions on gambling freedom.

Strategy

The strategy was built upon the respected Opinion of our Chairman on the Gambelli case when he was a Advocate General at the CJEU. The Opinion was used as a roadmap for judicial and legislative change during this seminal mandate. It articulated the narrow circumstances where a restriction on freedom of establishment would be justifiable by general interest concerns.

The strategy was structured on all levels according to the integral components of the Opinion. It utilized the intellectual resources of our firm to co-ordinate the legislative dialogue in a direction that facilitated the creation of a EU wide free gambling market. We provided components of the machinery as well as oiling the cogs of law reform.

Results

We provided long term, fixed judicial capital for our client and legislative change. Due to the ongoing successful execution of our strategy, recent judgments of the CJEU with respect to German and Austrian gambling restrictions have been echoing the Opinion.

The CJEU now professes that in order to justify monopolistic state gambling regulations legislation must “ensure a particularly high level of protection” and a “coherent” gambling market. There must now be specific and narrow circumstances to legitimize curtailments to the freedom of establishment in the gambling market. This CJEU strategy must now be followed by the European Commission when checking EU Member States’ gambling restrictions.

Challenge

Within a climate of instigated political fear in the USA for China’s corporations, Huawei was starting to have a credibility problem in the EU, despite adherence to EU standards and a strong commitment to Europe. Huawei’s reputation and thus business development being at risk over its products’ cyber security concerns, Alber & Geiger was called to mitigate these concerns and build support in Europe.

A major focus was the 5G rollout under the EU toolbox in several European member states. The respective European cybersecurity strategy conflicted with the bilateral corporation agreement several EU member states had signed with the United States on cybersecurity, especially targeting Chinese suppliers like Huawei.

Strategy

Alber & Geiger targeted key Members of the European Parliament in all relevant committees and across the political spectrum, to emphasize Huawei’s commitment to Europe, adherence to EU standards and contribution to the European economy through leading products and services, jobs creation and investments in research and development. In that context we established an alternate strategy with the European Commission and related EU agencies to show that Huawei is fully integrated in the EU market and successful for business reasons only.

Results

Our engagement demonstrated to EU law makers that there was no Chinese government involvement in Huawei’s business strategies, let alone any cyber security issue with Huawei’s devices. By doing so, we advanced Huawei’s business interests in Europe.

Challenge

The Maidan Square disaster on the eve of the Ukrainian Revolution and the following fall of Yanukovych’s government, triggered the Russian annexation of Crimea and a souring of the relationship between Russia and the West.

On March 5, 2014 the EU Council froze the assets of 18 former Ukrainian high-ranking officials, suspected of involvement in the Maidan Square disaster and misappropriation of state property. Among them Mykola Azarov, the former Prime Minister of Ukraine, and his son Oleksii Azarov, turned to Alber & Geiger for help.

Strategy

The strategy employed was built on an awareness of the full scope of the rule of law in Europe today, looking at the procedural fairness surrounding the sanctions. It required a subtle deployment of innovative legal arguments and emotional intelligence to navigate through the political turbulence, EU officials and peripheral actors to the institutions, for Alber & Geiger to demonstrate their innocence with strong convictions about their executive culpability.

We put forward that the freezing of funds was of a persecutive nature and not within EU competence. The three pronged approach attacked the premise of the sanctions at the right places and times. Alber & Geiger challenged the (1) legality, (2) legitimacy and (3) non-arbitrariness of the action, grasping all the potential playmakers.

Results

Ultimately the we were able to successfully get the freezing orders imposed on Oleksii Azarov removed, and considerably improve the position of Mykola Azarov. We made clear that the arbitrary targeting of individuals lacked a sufficient legal premise.

Through diligent fact finding we were able to cast doubt on the premise of the government’s alleged responsibility in the first place. We ultimately managed to help reinforce the rule of law, getting platform for the notions of fairness and equitable treatment of individuals into the public forum at a time when fairness was not an institutional priority.