Planning to buy a gambling business in the EU? Do not neglect the legal audit before buying

The gaming industry has grown into a multi-billion business, attracting investors around the world. Gambling has become more accessible to a wide range of users with the rapid growth of youth among online players. There has also been a shift in demography - more women are becoming clients of online casinos and computer games. Involvement in computer games is growing on all platforms; recently, mobile games have become in the very top of popularity.

All the above gave us the ground to focus your attention on some of the legal aspects that investors and buyers should consider when they decide to acquire a gaming company and start a gambling business. Neglecting these issues can leadtoserious consequences.

Legal audit of a gambling company in the EU

Identifying potential problems is easier and cheaper than solving them later. Therefore, before acquiring a company, a sensible step will be to examine the company thoroughly to identify potential problems that could affect its value. Such expertise usually covers finance, taxes and operations, and legal expertise also includes intellectual property. If you want to buy a ready-made gambling business in the EU, we can provide legal support for mergers and acquisitions in the gambling business.

Corporate support for gambling in the EU

Today you will not surprise anyone with the fact that small startups can grow into large gaming studios in a very short period of time. Normally, the studios are funded by founders or venture funds in the form of stocks, debt instruments, or combinations of the two.

Investing in a gambling company and acquiring shares in a gambling company usually requires the separation of complex shareholder structures so that the buyer receives all or the estimated ratio of shares in the gambling company.

If you’ve made your mind to register an international company for gambling business, our experienced lawyers will provide legal advice on how to set up an international gambling business in the most effective way.

Creative Issues

The heart of any gaming studio is, of course, games, as well as their creators. Almost everything that is created during the development of the game can be considered intellectual property. This includes source code, art design, music, lyrics, technology, and much more that are integral parts of the game. Thus, it is extremely important for the buyer of the game studio that the intellectual property rights and creations belong to the game studio. The same applies to publisher’s licenses for such intellectual property in distributed games.

In the gambling business, there is often a problem of determining who owns intellectual property rights - an employee or a company? Only a qualified legal analysis of IP agreements in the gambling business can help to solve this problem.

If you need to carry out legal analysis of the agreements regarding the protection of intellectual property rights in the gambling business, we can help you.

Rights to use IT-technologies

In order to organize a gambling business in the EU, it is important to understand that the rights to use IT technologies are no less important than the technologies themselves. When purchasing a gambling business in the EU, you will need to analyze the license agreements in the gambling business for the right of the parties to terminate the license agreement without notice when the main shareholder in the gambling company changes and the licensor is not notified about it.

The legal analysis and support of mergers and acquisitions in the gambling business in the EU is crucial to keep the right to key software.

GDPR and gambling companies in the EU

The GDPR has introduced many new data protection requirements that are typically more stringent than it has been before. Regulators have substantially increased fines for non-compliance. To order a legal audit of compliance with GDPR gambling in the EU, do not hesitate to contact us.

Neglect of legal issues leads to problems in the gambling business

Gambling market focuses on the creation of works of art, and in this sensitive sphere, legal issues are often neglected. For example, in many labor contracts with the creators, there are no terms of employment, which are the market standard in large corporate organizations. This can create real problems in the gambling business in the EU, in particular when it comes to employment contracts of key employees. Quite often, their employment contracts do not provide for non-competitive terms or confidentiality provisions. As a result, the creators are theoretically free to work in a competing gaming studio during and after their work in the respective gaming company. Thus, investing in the gambling business in the EU becomes risky, because competitors already have the knowledge, know-how of the creators, which is often the main asset of the transaction.

NB: When planning to buy a gambling business in the EU, it is of prime importance to order high-quality legal support for the purchase of a ready-made company. Often, only a deep legal audit can show all the problem points of the company, which are not visible at first glance.