GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: Nikos Nikolinakos, Dina Kouvelou and Alexis Spyropoulos, Nikolinakos & Partners Law Firm
The HGC is also responsible for imposing administrative sanctions. According to Article 51 of the Law, in case of violation of the provi - sions on gaming in force, the HGC shall issue a decision imposing a lump sum fine ranging from EUR1,000 to EUR2 million, or a percent - age of gross income, for every violation and/or for each gaming machine, and/or revoking the licence provisionally for up to three months, or permanently, depending on the severity and fre - quency of the violation. The Regulation for the Conduct and Control of Games specifies the cases when a fine is imposed per violation or per gaming machine, and qualifies the imposed administrative sanc - tions of this paragraph per violation or per cat - egories of violations. At its discretion, and before the imposition of an administrative penalty for the violations, the HGC may provide instructions, guidelines and recom - mendations in order for the violators to comply. Nevertheless, non-compliance constitutes an aggravating circumstance when imposing the administrative sanction. Any entity conducting games of chance without using and controlling player cards shall be issued a fine of between EUR5,000 and EUR7,000 per infringement. Furthermore, it is prohibited for ISPs with a registered office, headquarters or permanent establishment in Greece to allow online access to illegal gaming providers included on the rel - evant black list kept by the HGC. ISPs violating this obligation shall be fined according to the provisions of the Regulation for the Conduct and Control of Games. Finally, if licence holders fail to install the nec - essary technical infrastructure for the conduct of games of chance using gaming machines
or via the internet connected to the PSEE via Central IT Systems, they shall be fined between EUR100,000 and EUR500,000, and the HGC shall suspend their operation temporarily or even permanently revoke their licence. The HGC has imposed the following administra - tive sanctions. • Decision 43/2/30.10.2023: an administrative fine of EUR50,000 was imposed on a gaming company for violating the terms of licences for conducting online games of chance (Type 1 and Type 2). • Decision 37/1/21.09.2023: the administrative sanction of permanent licence revocation was imposed on a casino licence holder due to non-compliance with the terms of the licence and the private agreement. A further fine of EUR220,000 was imposed for the casino’s non-operation, which resulted in financial losses for the Greek State. • Decision 19/4/23.05.2023: an administrative fine of EUR5,000 was imposed on a casino operator for violations of casino operating terms. 9.3 Intellectual Property With regard to IP protection of video games, a distinction must be drawn between the soft - ware through which they are performed and their audiovisual presentation. The software is protected like all computer pro - grams, which, as well as the preparatory material for their design, are regarded as works of speech protected under IP law. Protection is granted to any form of expression of a computer program (ie, object and source code), and to programs embedded in hardware. However, ideas and principles on which any element of a computer program is based are not protected. A computer
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