A Court of Justice of the European Union Advocate General has concluded that EU courts can issue orders to freeze the bank accounts of offshore gambling operators, even when insolvency proceedings against the company have been opened outside the European Union.
The opinion, delivered by Advocate General Rimvydas Norkus on 5 March 2026 in case C-716/24, addresses a question arising from a German player’s attempt to recover around €57,000 in online gambling losses from a Curaçao-registered operator. After obtaining a judgment from the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main, the claimant sought to identify and freeze the company’s bank accounts in Cyprus using the European Account Preservation Order (EAPO), a cross-border debt recovery instrument established under EU Regulation No. 655/2014.
The complication: insolvency proceedings had been opened against the operator in Curaçao, outside the EU’s own insolvency framework under Regulation (EU) 2015/848.
What the Opinion Concludes
The AG’s position is that insolvency proceedings opened in a non-EU jurisdiction should not automatically bar EU courts from issuing an EAPO. The potential impact of any foreign insolvency procedure, the opinion states, should instead be assessed at the enforcement stage — not used as a threshold obstacle at the preservation order stage itself.
The Frankfurt appellate court referred two questions on how to read Article 2(c) of the EAPO Regulation alongside Recital 8 of the same regulation. The core question: does the opening of insolvency proceedings outside the EU’s own insolvency framework prevent courts from proceeding with a preservation order? The AG answered no.
AG opinions are advisory, but the Court of Justice follows them in the large majority of cases. A final judgment is expected in the coming months.
Why This Matters for Offshore Operators
Offshore licensing structures have long been used to separate corporate registration from the markets where players actually reside. Many operators maintain Curaçao, Malta, or other offshore licences while routing payments through bank accounts held in EU member states — including Cyprus, Malta, Luxembourg, and Ireland.
The EAPO was designed to allow creditors to freeze accounts across borders without prior notice to the debtor, preventing asset dissipation before enforcement can take place. If the Court confirms the AG’s position, a player holding a valid EU court judgment could freeze an operator’s bank accounts in any EU member state, regardless of where the operator is incorporated or whether its insolvency is managed outside the bloc.
This connects to a broader pattern of rising enforcement costs for operators that target EU players without holding local licences. On 15 January 2026, the CJEU delivered its judgment in case C-77/24 (Wunner), confirming that players can generally bring claims under the law of their home country when suing operators for losses incurred on unlicensed platforms. The two rulings together tighten the enforcement perimeter around offshore operators serving EU markets.
Regulators have also moved at a collective level. Seven European gambling regulators convened in Madrid in November 2025 specifically to address cross-border oversight challenges of the type that cases like C-716/24 are now working through the courts.
Structural Implications
Operators currently relying on Curaçao or other non-EU insolvency regimes as a partial shield against player enforcement actions may need to reassess their exposure. The AG opinion suggests EU enforcement mechanisms operate independently of non-EU insolvency proceedings, at least at the preservation stage.
For operators holding EU banking relationships, the prospect of accounts being frozen pending enforcement of player loss claims — potentially in multiple jurisdictions simultaneously — represents a material operational risk. The cross-border scope of the EAPO means a single judgment from a German, Austrian, or Italian court could trigger freezing applications against accounts wherever the operator holds EU-based payment infrastructure.
What happens at the enforcement stage, once any conflict with a non-EU insolvency regime is formally assessed, remains an open question. The AG opinion does not resolve it. It does lower the threshold for players and their legal representatives to initiate asset-preservation action before that question is ever reached.
Source: Court of Justice of the European Union
