Berck-sur-Mer casino lawsuit goes to France’s highest court

An ongoing lawsuit about a casino in Berck-sur-Mer has now been escalated to the highest court in France, the Conseil d’État.

Stemming from an argument about who owns the casino building and whether the public service contract of running it is valid, the lawsuit has been in process for months now. The initial case began when the administrative court in Lille cancelled three concession notices due to a debate about how casino operations were granted, as reported by Gambling News.

In response, Jean Metz SAS, a branch of Groupe Partouche that owns the casino’s property, filed a third-party challenge that claimed the judge had gone beyond his legal authority. The branch called for a temporary judge to be appointed, rather than evaluating the legal status of the property and classing it as a public asset for the town.

Jean Metz SAS argued that the casino building was never public property and therefore never should have been deemed a returnable asset.

However, the Société du Grand Casino de Dinant responded with claims hat Jean Metz SAS had not followed local rules pertaining to public property, which state that any property used to provide a public service must go back to the government for free when the service has been concluded.

Now, the case has been escalated to the Conseil d’État in April. The goal is to obtain clarity on the legal decisions made so far, as well as evaluate the various complaints and responses filed from both sides.

Previous judgements have labelled the building both as private property of Groupe Partouche and as a public asset, highlighting the need for resolution.

The high court will now figure out both the final status of the building, which was originally a bus terminal, and clarify the points of contention in the wider legal battle.

Elsewhere in the French casino landscape, online casinos remain on pause thanks to strong opposition groups embroiled in further legal debates.

Featured image: Flickr, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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