Yearly Archives: 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a slew of new restrictions for land-based gaming activity, one of the consequences of which was the significant growth of the remote gaming market in 2021. The necessity for legislative control of iGaming becomes more pressing. Different jurisdictions follow different principles when it comes to the regulations.

Malta

Malta’s success in the iGaming field is undeniable, as the first EU jurisdiction to launch regulated remote gaming, with an average of a hundred new applications per year, and as the largest EU iGaming jurisdiction. B2C licenses are designed for organizers of online or land-based casinos, betting, and other games, whereas B2B licenses are meant for licensing software used by B2C license holders.

The B2B license, also referred to as a Critical Gaming Supply License, is required to offer from Malta or to any person in Malta services which are deemed to be indispensable in determining the outcome of a game and/or an indispensable component in the processing and/or management of essential regulatory data. Thus, there are two types of B2B licenses which the MGA may issue. Game providers license: supply and management of material elements of a game, and Full platform license: supply and management of software, whether as a stand-alone or as part of a system, to generate, capture, control or otherwise process any essential regulatory record and/or the supply and management of the control system itself on which such software resides

UK

In the UK, remote gambling software license allows to develop, supply, install or adapt gambling software by means of remote communication. Regardless of where the company is based, license from Gambling Commission is needed if:

• • it provides facilities for gambling to consumers in Great Britain online (or through any other means of remote communication),
  • any part of remote gambling equipment is based in Great Britain.

There is a remote operating license for each type of gambling activity.

Alderney

Alderney, a small non-EU island in the English Channel, is now widely regarded as the largest hub for iGaming services in the world and transmits more internet gambling traffic than any other location in the world. The Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) is recognized worldwide as one of the world’s leading regulators of digital gambling. The openness and innovative decisions of the commission allow the formation of a loyal attitude towards licensees, and the commission’s approach to regulation and supervision was borrowed by many other jurisdictions.

Although an Alderney license allows to operate in other jurisdictions, some countries, such as the United Kingdom, will require a local license.

Romania

This is a European license that enables to offer and trade gaming software in Romania. A developer’s license is a type of class II gaming license that can be awarded to both international and Romanian companies. Suppliers and distributors with Class II licenses can supply gaming solutions, administer platforms, and provide hosting services in the regulated Romanian market.

Belgium

Developers of gambling software are required to obtain a class E-license in Belgium. This license is quite simple to obtain and can be issued to a European company. There is no separation of land-based and online software in the legislation, therefore, developers who wish to supply their games to online casinos with a Belgian license (A + license) are required to obtain a full Class E license.

Armenia

A corresponding license or B2C license is necessary to carry out activities in the field of iGaming in Armenia. At the same time, prize e-games are considered to be organized in Armenia if the organizer’s servers are based physically in Armenia, have the address of Armenia’s corresponding Internet system (IP) (Internet Protocol Address-Internet communication address), and information resources are in the “AM” domain. After all of the relevant paperwork is submitted, the license is given within 23 working days. It can be extended for another 23 working days by the decision of the authorized State body.

Supply and management of gambling software is not subject to licensing in Armenia, and no permission is required for the B2B activity. As a result, no permission is required for gambling software solutions, their trade, or routine maintenance in Armenia.

The mining sector is one of the largest contributors to GDP and exports in Armenia. Armenia’s industrial-scale metal production began in the early 19th century with the opening of the Alaverdi and Kapan copper mines. Economic development began to rely more on mining in the early 1950s with the development of the Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Combine, which exploited the world-class Kajaran deposit (among the ten largest in the world), and produced around 3% of the world’s annual molybdenum output.

The main metals mined are copper, molybdenum and gold. The main deposits are copper, gold, molybdenum and polymetallic (lead and zinc). Currently the biggest mine is operated by the Zangezur Copper-Molybdenum Combine, CJSC (ZCMC), located in Kajaran (Syunik province).

ZCMC is a copper-molybdenum deposit that started operations in the middle of the 20th century and, currently, represents more than half of the total output of the sector in the country.

Teghut (a copper-molybdenum mine in Lori province) began operation in 2014 with volumes that is less than the production of Kajaran․

Lydian Armenia, a geological exploration firm registered in Armenia that claims to exploit the gold deposit of the same name on the land of Amulsar in Vayots Dzor region with the consent of the country’s government, is also a key participant in the sphere. More than 90 million US dollars were invested in geological exploration as part of the program, and 370 million US dollars were spent on construction. The company has committed itself to be guided by economic principles, executive standards and requirements of the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

In total, currently about 30 metal mining licenses have been identified as valid but not many of them are active in production. The non-metal mining sector is significant in terms of the number of operations (more than 400 permits), but the vast majority are low volume quarries. Production is much less than during the Soviet period, as it mainly focuses on meeting local demand for construction materials, and there is little export.

It’s worth mentioning, that in 2017, Armenia became the 52nd country to join the EITI – Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative as a candidate country. EITI promotes open and accountable management of oil, gas, and mineral resources. The Mining Agency within the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure is responsible for administering the sector, issuing licenses, monitoring exploration and production operations. The license covers the exploration and production phases of a project.  License holders must submit work programs to the Ministry for approval, and licenses can be withdrawn if minimum work requirements are not met. 

The government derives economic benefits in the form of received taxes, royalties and other payments, including royalties for the extraction of metals.

Recent developments

The Armenian government has adopted draft legislative changes that propose transferring 2% of subsurface users’ royalties to affected communities.

According to statistics released in Armenia’s EITI reports, royalties in the amounts of 23.5 billion, 37.6 billion, 34.6 billion, and 37.4 billion drams were paid to the Republic of Armenia’s State budget from 2016 to 2019. As a result, about 700-800 million AMD will be dispersed among the affected communities, and in the event that metal prices continue to rise, the estimated royalties, and therefore the deducted amounts, will also rise. If the National Assembly passes a bill package, it will take effect on January 1, 2023.

Simultaneously, debating the draft bill on revisions and additions to the Tax Code, which seeks to implement a new method of calculating royalties, with the goal of generating additional revenues and ensuring a good working environment for businesses. The royalty rate for differential formulas is intended to be determined by the values of these metals on the global market.

 

 

What is the Eurasian Economic Union?

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is an international economic integration, endowed with international competence, based on the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union, which was signed in 2014.

Which countries make up the Eurasian Economic Union?

Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus created the Eurasian Economic Union. Armenia and Kyrgyzstan were later admitted to the Union.

What are the Eurasian Economic Union’s governing bodies?

Supranational and intergovernmental structures are used to run the Union. The Union’s top body is the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, which is made up of the heads of the Union’s member states. The Eurasian International Council represents the second level of intergovernmental institutions (consisting of the Heads of the governments of member states). The Eurasian Economic Commission, the Union’s executive body, oversees the EAEU’s daily operations. There is also a judicial entity, the EAEU Court.

What is the Eurasian Economic Union’s goal?

The Eurasian Economic Union was established with the goal of fostering multilateral modernization of national economies, cooperation, increased competitiveness, and stable development in order to raise the living standards of the member nations’ populations.

The establishment of a single market and the achievement of the “four freedoms” meaning the free movement of commodities, capital, services, and people inside the single market, are the primary goals of the Single Economic Space. The EAEU promotes free movement of goods and services and establishes common policies in the areas of macroeconomics, transportation, industry and agriculture, energy, foreign trade and investment, customs, technical, competition, and antitrust regulation. In the future, provisions for a unified currency and more integration are expected.

International Cooperation

An interim agreement on a free trade zone between the EAEU and Iran was signed on May 17, 2018, and entered into force on October 27, 2019. In 2020, trade between the EAEU countries and Iran grew by 18.5% compared to 2019, reaching $2.9 billion. In October of 2021 Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) have begun to negotiate a permanent agreement on a free trade zone.

What is the Eurasian Economic Union’s population?

The Eurasian Economic Union has a population of 184 million people, 93.6 million of whom are economically active. The unemployment rate is 4.8 percent.

What are the EAEU’s economic indicators for 2020?

Indicators of the Economy in General 

• The EAEU’s Gross Domestic Product: $1,738 trillion USD.
• Volume of EAEU External Trade with Third Countries: 731.1 billion USD
• Industrial Production: 97.6%

Agriculture

• Agriculture Production: 114,5 billion USD
• Gross Production of Grain and Leguminous Crops: 164,5 million tons
• Milk Production: 48,8 million tons

EAEU Infrastructure

• Rail Mileage: 145,5 thousand km
• Stretch of Road: 1,759,9 thousand km
• Proportion of the Population Having internet Access: 83,7% of the population

Manufacturing Industry

• Steel Production: 84,3 million tons
• Mineral Fertilizers Production: 17 million tons
• Cast Iron Production: 55,2 million tons

Energy Industry 

• Oil Production: 599,7 million tons
• Gas Production: 749,9 million cubic meters
• Power Generation: 1 256,3 million KW/H

Armenia passed a bill amending the Law “On Foreigners”, establishing a new system for giving work permits to foreigners in Armenia starting from January 1, 2022. The main changes are as follows:

• A unified digital platform is being introduced through which information about foreign employees and employers is entered or uploaded;
• Employers can submit the work permit applications through a single digital platform;
• If a work permit is currently issued in a documented form, the work permit from now will be a digital form, allowing foreign employees to obtain a temporary residence and work permit in Armenia;
• The law says that during the term of the validity of the work contract (service agreement), the employer undertakes to cover the costs of transporting a foreigner’s corpse to his home country owing to the fulfillment of labor responsibilities;
• To protect personal data, the authorized state entity in charge of migration must limit the state bodies’ access to information about the foreigner or his employer after fulfilling its direct tasks in the process of resolving the employment of a foreign person;

The opportunity to work in Armenia without obtaining a work permit was also given to those, who received a temporary residence permit in Armenia:

• Based on the person’s nationality;
• Foreign students enrolled in the Armenia educational institutions for a period of one year after graduation, as well as students participating in an employment exchange program during the vacations on the basis of appropriate international agreements,
• If there are some other conditions stipulated by law.

The Government of Armenia must establish the technical description of the unified digital platform, the procedure for conducting, minimum requirements for applications, the procedure for filling out and submitting applications on the digital platform, and the procedure for attracting foreign employees to the digital platform. The decision outlining some defined method has now reached the end of public debate, and it is likely to take effect alongside the adjustments.

Generally, judgments made by foreign courts in civil cases can be recognized and enforced either if there are provisions in international treaties or based on the principle of reciprocity.

Reciprocity should be understood in the context of international civil procedure as a method of regulating interactions with foreign states in which foreign court decisions can only be recognized and enforced if the first state’s court decisions can be recognized and enforced in the state where they were issued. In this scenario, the primary goal of reciprocity is to influence a foreign state’s legal policy by imposing equivalent restrictions on its citizens’ rights. Reciprocity is founded on the concept of equal exchange (equal concessions) between equal entities.

The primary goal of guaranteeing reciprocity in international civil procedure is to influence a foreign state’s legal policy. As a result of the principle of sovereignty, the state determines the conditions for the recognition of rights obtained in another country at its own discretion.

A considerable number of nineteenth-century governments took a similar approach to the content of the idea of “reciprocity.”

In this regard, the Belgian Court of Cassation’s decision in the Beaufremont case, dated January 19, 1882, states that when deciding on the issue of recognition and execution (exequatur), Belgian courts must first establish the existence of an international treaty concluded on the basis of reciprocity. The doctrine describes a comparable method to regulating the acceptance and enforcement of foreign decisions as “conventional” or “diplomatic” reciprocity.

The main purpose of conventional reciprocity was to ensure the reciprocal nature of the concessions of the contracting States. Unilateral concessions were considered a sign of the weakness of the state in the international arena.

At the same time, the first works in the field of comparative civil procedure demonstrated that recognition and enforcement of foreign judicial decisions are permitted in some countries (mainly the Anglo-American legal family) based on the idea of duty (i.e. in the absence of an international treaty). In this instance, the rule of reciprocity was interpreted in such a way that foreign judgments might be recognized and enforced in cases where the statute or judicial practice of the state of issuance permitted so.

This is how the concepts of “lawful reciprocity” and “real reciprocity”, which are antithetical to the concept of “conventional reciprocity”, developed (in respect to circumstances where recognition and enforcement of foreign court judgments were permitted by the relevant State’s judicial practice).

The rule of ensuring reciprocity is understood variously in modern foreign legislation.

The idea of “reciprocity” in the realm of recognition and execution of foreign judgments is linked to “legitimate reciprocity” by current Russian legislator. In addition, a number of post-Soviet governments, including Georgia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, have abandoned the international treaty as a criterion for the recognition of foreign judicial acts in favor of the reciprocity principle.

On the contrary, there is a consistent approach in Anglo-American doctrine and law enforcement practice, according to which a friendly attitude toward foreign judicial judgments is an inherent aspect of the state’s legal policy.

Some experts even suggest that “reciprocity” is one of the “universal principles of law” and / or “international customs” acknowledged by all civilized nations. It is argued in support of this thesis that reciprocity as an international law principle is established in the UN Charter’s preamble as well as the Declaration on “General Principles of International Law.” However, the allusion to these papers suggests that they are discussing “mutual collaboration” among states rather than a state’s right. Allowing the recognition of rights gained in another country, as long as the second country guarantees the recognition of rights acquired in the first (“reciprocity”).

If the many manifestations of the reciprocity principle may be conditionally categorized, the following can be stated:

• Reciprocity is regarded as possible in a number of states that have established the idea of reciprocity if there are cases of recognition and execution of judgments of the requesting state’s courts in the judicial practice of a foreign state (the example of China). That is, in each case of recognition and execution of foreign judicial acts, the courts of these states must determine whether there are cases of recognition and execution of their own judicial acts in the foreign state in question.
• Another group of states that have made the presence of a precedent for the recognition or execution of judicial acts of their own courts in a foreign state a legal requirement do not consider the absence of a precedent for the recognition or execution of judicial acts of their own courts in a foreign state sufficient reason to refuse recognition and execution of judicial acts of that state. The potential of reciprocity is determined by researching a foreign country’s legislation. To determine if there is no such reason for refusal, the courts examine the judicial practice of the state that issued the judicial act in each instance to see if cases of recognition and execution of judicial acts are documented in the state. Germany, for example, is one of these countries. The requirement to ensure reciprocity is considered met in German doctrine and in the countries that have adopted the German model of procedural law (Turkey, Japan), provided that the requirements for foreign judicial decisions in the issuing state generally coincide with similar requirements in force in the state of recognition. Foreign law shall not impose more stringent restrictions on German court decisions than those imposed by Article 328 of the Civil Process Code of 1878, according to the German doctrine.
• When determining the presence of reciprocity, the third group of States, which believes it is conceivable to recognize and execute judicial acts based on the principle of reciprocity, is led by the presumption of its existence, which presupposes reciprocity unless the reverse is shown.

The new Civil Code of the Republic of Armenia establishes two independent grounds for the recognition of foreign judicial acts. In particular, according to Article 346 of the RA Code of Civil Procedure, judicial acts of courts of foreign states rendered in civil cases are recognized, and judicial acts requiring execution are also executed in the Republic of Armenia, if such recognition and execution are provided for by an international treaty of the Republic of Armenia or on the basis of reciprocity․

If recognition and execution of a foreign judicial act depends on reciprocity, then reciprocity is considered to exist until proven otherwise. This means that in the absence of an international treaty, the principle of reciprocity applies, the existence of which, however, can be refuted. In other words, the presumption of the principle of reciprocity is valid until it is refuted. As a rule, the burden of proving the absence of repatriation is borne by the procedural opponent of the claiming party․

It should also be noted that the Armenia’s legislation provides for the recognition of foreign judicial acts in specific situations even in the absence of international treaties and reciprocity. That is, showing the lack of reciprocity during the trial does not rule out the recognition of a foreign judicial act. In particular, Armenia recognizes the following, notwithstanding the lack of an international convention or reciprocity:

• judicial acts on the legal status of persons;
• foreign judicial acts on the dissolution of marriage or the annulment of marriage between foreign citizens; 
• foreign judicial acts on the dissolution of marriage or annulment of marriage between citizens of the Republic of Armenia or between citizens of the Republic of Armenia and foreign citizens or stateless persons;
• if stipulated by law – other foreign judicial acts.

Based on the principle of reciprocity, the courts of Armenia have recognized the judgments issued by the courts of France and the United States of America (state of California), as well as the Lebanese Republic, and thus the first step in recognizing the judicial acts issued by the courts of Armenia in these countries has been completed.