The Digital Dice Roll: How A Gambling Case Shapes Cross-Border Liability

The case centres on an Austrian consumer ("TE") who lost over EUR 18,000 gambling on www.drueckglueck.com, a website operated by Titanium Brace Marketing Limited ("Titanium Brace"), a company licensed in Malta which did not hold, however, a gambling licence in Austria.

With no recourse against the Company, while Titanium Brace later became bankrupt, TE sued its former directors personally before the Austrian courts, raising complex questions under EU private international law.

Tort or Corporate Law?

The first legal issue referred by the Austrian Supreme Court to the CJEU concerns which law governs TE's claims: the law of the country where the damage occurred, or the company's corporate law? Under the Rome II Regulation, "non-contractual obligations arising out of the law of companies", including "the personal liability of officers and members as such for the obligations of the company", are excluded from its scope. At the heart of the matter: can directors be