Malta Bill 55 and Case C-683/24: Where Article 56A Stands in 2026

As of early September 2026, Article 56A of Malta's Gaming Act, the provision Bill 55 inserted in June 2023, is still on the statute book, still applied by Maltese courts, and still the subject of a pending Court of Justice case. The Austrian reference for a preliminary ruling, registered as C-683/24, asks whether Article 56A can coexist with the Brussels I bis Regulation on the recognition of judgments. Advocate General Nicholas Emiliou answered on 23 April 2026 that it can't, calling the provision "manifestly incompatible" with the rules on recognition and enforcement. The Court's judgment hasn't been delivered. The European Commission's infringement case, opened in June 2025, runs in parallel.

Key facts

• June 2023: Bill 55 amends the Gaming Act (Chapter 583 of the Laws of Malta), adding Article 56A, which directs Maltese courts to refuse recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments against MGA licensees for gaming activity that's lawful in Malta.
• June 2025: the European Commission opens infringement proceedings against Malta over Article 56A, the first step of the Article 258 TFEU procedure.
• 16 April 2026: in a separate judgment, the CJEU restates that a Maltese gaming licence is valid in Malta only; no member state has to recognise another state's gambling licence.
• 23 April 2026: Advocate General Emiliou delivers his opinion in C-683/24, finding Article 56A incompatible with Regulation 1215/2012 and rejecting economic harm to an industry as a ground for the public policy exception.
• September 2026: the judgment in C-683/24 is pending, the Court follows Advocate General opinions in roughly 70% of cases, and aggregate refund claims against MGA licensees from Austrian and German players are estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros (industry figures, approximate).

What Article 56A does

Brussels I bis, formally Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, is the EU rulebook for civil judgments crossing borders. Article 36 says a judgment given in one member state is recognised in the others without any special procedure. Article 45(1)(a) lets a court refuse recognition only where it would be "manifestly contrary to public policy" in the state addressed, and the Court has always read that exception narrowly.

Article 56A turned the exception into a rule. It instructs Maltese courts to refuse recognition and enforcement of any foreign judgment that relates to the provision of gaming services by an MGA licensee, as long as the underlying activity was lawful under Maltese law. The stated justification was that protecting Malta's licensed gaming sector from extraterritorial liability is a matter of national public policy.

The backdrop was money. Austrian courts treat gambling contracts with operators outside the state monopoly as void, so players can reclaim their net losses. German courts reached a similar result for the years before the 2021 State Treaty opened licensing to private online casinos. Claimants won judgments at home, then tried to enforce them in Malta, where the operators' assets sit. Industry sources put the claims in the hundreds of millions of euros. Bill 55 was the shield, and it only works if Article 45(1)(a) can be used the way Malta used it. That's the question the Austrian court sent to Luxembourg.

Case C-683/24 and the Advocate General's opinion

The reference came from an Austrian court in late 2024 and is registered on CURIA as C-683/24. The underlying dispute wasn't a player claim against an operator. It was a professional liability matter concerning legal advice given on Bill 55, and whether that advice was sound depended on whether Article 56A is valid under EU law. The Austrian court asked the Court of Justice to settle that preliminary question.

Advocate General Emiliou's opinion of 23 April 2026 made three findings, each bad for the Maltese position:

1. Article 56A is incompatible with Brussels I bis. The public policy exception requires a court to look at a specific judgment and decide whether recognising it would breach a fundamental principle of the forum. Article 56A refuses a whole category of judgments in the abstract.

1. Economic consequences don't count. In the opinion's words, the fact that enforcing certain judgments "may entail serious economic consequences for a national operator, an industry or even the Member State addressed does not justify recourse to the 'public policy' clause." Malta's industry-protection argument was addressed directly and rejected.

1. A Maltese licence is a Maltese licence. The opinion repeats what the Court had said one week earlier, on 16 April 2026: gambling remains a member state competence, and no state is obliged to recognise a licence issued elsewhere in the EU. The "MGA licence as EU passport" theory has no basis in EU law.

The opinion also raised admissibility. The Advocate General questioned whether the Austrian dispute could be decided without ruling on Article 56A at all, which would make the reference inadmissible; the substantive analysis was given for the case that the Court disagrees on that point.

An Advocate General's opinion doesn't bind the Court. Published analyses put the rate at which judges follow the Advocate General at roughly 70%, higher in cases about core principles of EU law.

The Commission's infringement angle

The second track is administrative, not judicial, and it doesn't depend on C-683/24. In June 2025 the European Commission opened infringement proceedings against Malta over Article 56A. The Article 258 TFEU procedure runs in stages: letter of formal notice, reasoned opinion, and then referral to the Court of Justice if the member state doesn't comply. A judgment against Malta at that stage would oblige it to amend or repeal Article 56A; continued non-compliance can lead to financial penalties under Article 260.

The practical point: even if the Court dismisses C-683/24 as inadmissible, the Commission can carry the same argument to Luxembourg itself, with the Advocate General's reasoning already on the record. As of this refresh, iGamingHub couldn't verify any amendment to Article 56A tabled in Malta's parliament, and the Commission hasn't published a referral. Both remain pending.

Key numbers

The licensing estimates are the ranges the earlier version of this article carried, not re-verified against 2026 fee schedules; treat them as order-of-magnitude figures.

What MGA operators should do now

Measure the enforcement exposure in Austria and Germany

Pull net player losses by jurisdiction for the last five years, focusing on Austria and Germany first, then the Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy. Net losses, not gross gaming revenue at the group level, because that's what a refund claim is priced on. Split the German figure at the date you obtained a GGL licence (if you did), since the claim window is the unlicensed period.

Austria is the sharper edge. The state monopoly means every foreign operator serving Austrian players was in the grey market throughout, litigation funders have industrialised the claims, and a claimant with an Austrian judgment can bypass Malta entirely by targeting assets elsewhere in the EU. The European Account Preservation Order under Regulation (EU) No 655/2014 lets a court in one member state freeze a bank account in another. Article 56A says nothing about accounts in Cyprus, Estonia or Germany.

Germany is a question of dates. Operators that took a GGL licence and stayed inside the regime are exposed for the pre-licence period only; the regulator's push on channelisation is about squeezing unlicensed play, not unwinding licensed play. Operators that kept serving German players on the MGA licence after local licensing existed carry the largest single risk in the sector.

Read the contract clauses you'd rely on

Most MGA licensees run on a third-party platform, and the platform contract decides who pays when a claim lands. Four clauses matter:

• Geo-blocking and market responsibility. Whether the platform or the operator decides which markets are open, and who's liable when a blocked market leaks.
• Regulatory indemnities and change-in-law. Whether either side can terminate or reprice if a judgment makes an existing market untenable.
• Data retention. KYC, AML and responsible gambling logs from 2018 onwards are your defence file if claims come; make sure the platform keeps them and can hand them over.
• Payment provider reserves. Acquirers and PSPs can raise a rolling reserve or freeze settlement when a merchant's legal risk rises. Check the trigger language.

The migration side is where the catalog helps. iGamingHub tracks 24 platforms holding an MGA licence out of 44 in the catalog, and the ones worth talking to are those that already run in locally licensed markets. SOFTSWISS is listed with 25 licences and certifications, MGA among them, plus national approvals in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Greece and Brazil. EveryMatrix is listed with MGA, Curacao, Denmark, Argentina and Brazil. Altenar is listed with MGA plus the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Belgium, Greece and Ontario, among others. If your plan involves a GGL or KSA application, a platform that's already certified there shortens the timeline more than anything else you control.

Set reserves and brief the board

Provision for the worst case, then decide how much to ring-fence. Diversify banking beyond Malta and beyond any single EU state where a preservation order could bite. Expect D&O underwriters and bank onboarding teams to ask about Article 56A explicitly. Then put the exposure number, the scenarios and the migration options in front of the board.

The alternative licences get raised in every one of these conversations. Curacao's 2026 regime and the other offshore options solve nothing for EU exposure; they're relevant only for operators that plan to leave regulated Europe and refocus on Latin America, Africa or Asia. The UK, run under its own regulator, was never part of the passport theory.

Scenarios

Three outcomes are plausible when the Court rules; model all three.

Full strike-down. The Court follows the Advocate General. Malta must repeal or rewrite Article 56A, and Austrian and German judgments become enforceable against Maltese assets. Refund litigation accelerates, the MGA licence keeps its value for non-EU markets and loses its cross-border function. Response: local licences in the two or three highest-exposure markets, exit from the rest.

Partial strike-down. The Court finds the blanket refusal incompatible but confirms that Maltese courts may still apply the public policy exception case by case. Uncertainty stretches over 12 to 24 months while claims are litigated one at a time. Response: a hybrid, MGA for lower-risk markets, local licences where the claims are.

Inadmissibility. The Court accepts the procedural point and doesn't rule on substance. Article 56A survives for now; the Commission's infringement track and other national references become the vehicle. Response: use the time, don't mistake it for a reprieve.

A fourth option, waiting for Bill 55 to hold, is the plan with the lowest probability of working. Banks, PSPs and insurers have already repriced the risk regardless of what the judgment says. Operators are repositioning while the judgment is pending, and the offshore licensing comparison sets out the realistic fallbacks.

Milestones ahead

• Judgment in C-683/24. No delivery date has been published on CURIA at the time of this refresh. The earlier version of this article guessed at the fourth quarter of 2026; treat that as a guess, not a schedule, and watch the case page for a hearing or judgment date.
• After a judgment against Malta. Malta would need to amend or repeal Article 56A, and the Austrian referring court would decide its own case on the basis of the ruling. Enforcement of existing Austrian and German judgments in Maltese courts would follow.
• After an inadmissibility ruling. The Commission's Article 258 procedure continues; a reasoned opinion and a referral would be the next two steps, on a timeline the Commission controls. Other national courts, including in Germany, may send fresh references.
• Malta's own move. Whether the government amends Article 56A before being forced to. Nothing was published as of September 2026.
• Market signals. Operator exits from Austria, GGL and KSA application announcements, and PSP or bank policy changes for MGA-only merchants.

Primary sources

• Court of Justice of the European Union, case page for C-683/24, including the Advocate General's opinion of 23 April 2026 and the judgment when delivered.
• Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 (Brussels I bis), Articles 36 and 45.
• Gaming Act, Chapter 583 of the Laws of Malta, Article 56A as inserted by Bill 55 in 2023.
• Malta Gaming Authority, licence fee schedule and regulatory notices.
• Regulation (EU) No 655/2014, the European Account Preservation Order.
• European Commission, infringement procedure overview and decisions database.