Case C-432/05 Unibet v Justitiekanslern [2008] 33 ELRev 586

• Sweden required those who ran lotteries / games of chance to have licences to practice in Sweden.

• Plaintiff said this infringed their right to provide services pursuant to Article 49 (freedom to provide services).

• The Swedish court asked the ECJ:

  1. Whether the principle of effective judicial protection makes necessary to provide a free standing challenge to a national measure on the basis that it conflicts with an EC treaty; and

  2. Whether the principle requires it to be possible in the legal order of a Member State to obtain interim relief suspending the application of national measures until the competent court has given a ruling on whether those measures are compatible with Community law.

ECJ

• Held that a free standing challenge was unnecessary, provided there was some other domestic action that allowed the incompatibility to be determined (national procedural autonomy), but which was no less advantageous (equivalency).

• Principle of effective judicial protection did however mean that it was necessary for a NC to be able to order interim relief from a national measure while ECJ judged compatibility with EC law.

  • This judgment says that national procedural autonomy is preserved, albeit that the ECJ seems to go quite far in examining the national procedural rules.

  • Here, there were many ways Swedish laws could be challenged under lots of different procedures, therefore equivalency is fulfilled.