NATIONAL LOTTERY AD A OSTATNÍ proti Bulharsku

THIRD SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 50643/20
NATIONAL LOTTERY AD and Others
against Bulgaria

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 20 May 2025 as a Committee composed of:

Peeter Roosma, President,
Diana Kovatcheva,
Canòlic Mingorance Cairat, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the application (no. 50643/20) against the Republic of Bulgaria lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 13 November 2020 by three Bulgarian companies and two Bulgarian nationals, whose relevant details are listed in the appended table (“the applicants”);

the decision to give notice of the complaints concerning the revocation ex lege of the gambling licences of two of the applicants to the Bulgarian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms I. Stancheva-Chinova from the Ministry of Justice, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1. The case concerns legislative amendments introduced in February 2020, which revoked gambling licences held by two applicant companies.

2. The first and second applicants – National Lottery AD and New Games AD – are shareholding companies that, until early 2020, were among the leading actors in Bulgaria’s gambling sector. They held gambling licences for various lottery games, set to expire between 2022 and 2025. More information on National Lottery AD is available in a decision on another application submitted by the company – see Eurofootball OOD and Others v. Bulgaria (dec.) (nos. 1284/21 and 14181/21, 10 December 2024).

3. The three remaining applicants are minority shareholders in the first and second applicants.

4. In early 2020 the Bulgarian Parliament amended the Gambling Act 2012, stipulating that licences for lottery games could be granted only to the State, and be put into operation by a State-owned enterprise. The amendments, which came into effect on 22 February 2020, resulted in the immediate and automatic revocation of the first and second applicants’ gambling licences described above. Consequently, the first and second applicants were obliged to cease immediately most of their business activities. The second applicant was ultimately declared insolvent.

5. The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 of the revocation of the two companies’ gambling licences and the damage it had caused to their business. They contended that the impugned amendments to the Gambling Act had amounted to a “wholesale nationalisation of the lottery sector”, which had been unlawful and had not pursued any legitimate aim in the public interest, and in relation to which they had been offered no compensation.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

6. Regarding the third, fourth and fifth applicants (see the appended table), the Court finds that they cannot claim to be “victims” of the violation alleged in the case, which directly affected the first and second applicants – the companies holding gambling licences before the February 2020 amendments. In this respect, the Court refers to its findings concerning other shareholders in National Lottery AD in Eurofootball OOD and Others (cited above, §§ 56-63).

7. Accordingly, those applicants’ complaints are incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 § 4.

8. Concerning the first and second applicants, in March 2025 the Government raised an objection regarding non-exhaustion of domestic remedies. The objection was based on the fact that in February 2025 the two companies had brought tort actions against Parliament, claiming damages relating to the February 2020 amendments to the Gambling Act, which they argued were in breach of European Union law.

9. The first and second applicants, however, urged the Court not to dismiss their complaints on this basis. They asserted that domestic law did not allow them to bring an action against Parliament for violations of the Convention, and that their tort actions had been filed “just in case” and to comply with the five-year deadline set under domestic law. In reality, domestic law offered no adequate remedies, as their grievances stemmed directly from an act of Parliament.

10. The Court is not required to rule on the Government’s objection. For the purposes of the analysis below, it is prepared to assume that the first and second applicants were correct in asserting that domestic law provided no effective remedies for their complaints.

11. As previously mentioned, the applicants’ grievances originated directly from a legislative act of the Bulgarian Parliament, namely the amendments to the Gambling Act which entered into force on 22 February 2020 (see paragraph 4 above).

12. The application was lodged on 13 November 2020, more than six months after the date on which the alleged breach of the applicants’ rights had been finalised. Therefore, a question arises as to the compliance of the application with the six-month time-limit provided for in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, as worded before the entry into force of Protocol No. 15.

13. In the case of Saakashvili v. Georgia ((dec.), nos. 6232/20 and 22394/20, § 49, 1 March 2022), the Court noted the following:

“[O]n 11 March 2020 the World Health Organisation declared a public health emergency of international concern – the highest level of alarm – in relation to the global outbreak of a new infectious and mostly respiratory disease (subsequently called COVID-19) caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus (...). In the light of those developments, on 16 March and 9 April 2020 the President of the Court announced a number of exceptional measures to allow applicants, High Contracting Parties and the Court to handle the difficulties to which the global pandemic and widespread lockdown gave rise. One effect of those measures, which were decided by the President in the exercise of his competence to direct the work and the administration of the Court under Rule 9 of the Rules of Court, was that the Registry of the Court, when registering newly received applications, and without prejudice to any subsequent judicial decision on the matter, was to add three months in total to the method of calculation of the six-month rule under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention whenever a calendar six-month period either started to run or, on the contrary, was due to expire at any time between 16 March and 15 June 2020.”

The Court then concluded (§ 58 of the decision) that:

“It follows that if a calendar six-month period either started to run or was due to expire during the time frame specified in the decisions of the President of the Court (from 16 March until and including 15 June 2020), the six-month rule under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention should be exceptionally considered to have been suspended for three calendar months in total.”

14. The Court clarified how the above findings applied to cases such as the present one in Kitanovska and Barbulovski v. North Macedonia (no. 53030/19, § 40, 9 May 2023) and Masse v. France ((dec.), no. 47506/20, §§ 29-32, 25 March 2025). It specified that the exceptional extension of the six-month time-limit under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention did not apply where the relevant period had neither begun, nor expired within the timeframe between 16 March and 15 June 2020. The Court explained that such an approach served the interests of legal certainty, foreseeability and equality of the parties before the law (see Masse, cited above, § 29).

15. The Court finds no reason to depart from the approach established in the cases cited above. It thus concludes that the exceptional extension of the six-month time limit under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention did not apply to the first and second applicants’ situation.

16. In the present case, as noted above, the relevant period began on 22 February 2020 (see paragraph 11 above). The application was lodged on 13 November 2020, namely more than six months later.

17. Accordingly, the complaints of the first and second applicants have been introduced out of time and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 12 June 2025.

Olga Chernishova Peeter Roosma
Deputy Section Registrar President

Appendix

List of applicants: