Documents from the French online betting operator Betclic were seized in October as part of a tax investigation centered in particular on its Maltese subsidiary, according to a court decision handed down last week. On October 18, the National Directorate of Tax Investigations (DNEF) carried out this seizure on the premises of Betclic, authorized by the judge of freedoms and detention.
The authorization was unsuccessfully challenged by Betclic before the court and then the Bordeaux Court of Appeal, which rejected the operator’s appeal on May 23, according to the order, confirming information from the website The Informed relayed by the newspaper South West.
“An activity in France without subscribing the corresponding tax declarations”
The DNEF suspects Betclic Entreprises Limited, a subsidiary of Betclic based in Malta and holder of a French online gambling license, of exercising “an activity in France […] without subscribing the corresponding tax declarations”.
In its order, the Court of Appeal justifies the validation of the seizure operation by evoking a “bundle of clues [qui] makes it possible to presume” that Betclic Entreprises Limited would carry out “part of its commercial activity on French territory, without having recognized the income from this activity and without subscribing the corresponding tax declarations”.
Betclic’s lawyers denounced in the context of the procedure an “erroneous analysis of the organization of the group” and alleged that the subsidiary Betclic Entreprises Limited had in Malta “significant material and human resources for the exercise of its operational activity”. .
In a press release sent to AFP on Wednesday, the operator denied any fraud.