Swedish appeals court upholds Hillside warnings and fines of SEK 4m and SEK 40m

Sweden's Administrative Court of Appeal (Kammarrätten) ruled on 8 October that Hillside (Gaming) ENC and Hillside (Sports) ENC must each keep a warning and a sanction fee. The court found, in line with the lower court, that both companies committed serious infringements of the duty of care and the deposit-limit rules, according to Spelinspektionen.

The fees stand at SEK 4m for Hillside (Gaming) ENC and SEK 40m for Hillside (Sports) ENC. The Swedish Gambling Authority announced the rulings on 14 October.

What happened

Spelinspektionen issued a warning and a sanction fee to each company in decisions dated 24 April 2023. The decisions concerned shortcomings in the duty of care. Both companies appealed to the administrative court (förvaltningsrätten).

That court gave its judgments on 13 June 2024. It changed the original decisions only on the size of the fees, lowering them to SEK 4m for Hillside (Gaming) ENC and SEK 40m for Hillside (Sports) ENC. It described those amounts as proportionate to the infringements of the duty of care and the deposit-limit provisions. In reaching that view it took into account each company's financial circumstances and other mitigating and aggravating factors.

Spelinspektionen had itself asked for lower fees after the Supreme Administrative Court issued a guiding ruling on how the size of a sanction fee is to be calculated (HFD 2023 ref. 25). The regulator proposed a reduction to SEK 5m for Hillside (Gaming) ENC and to SEK 52m for Hillside (Sports) ENC.

Both companies then took the cases to the Administrative Court of Appeal. On 8 October 2026 it reached the same assessment as the lower court and rejected the appeals. The court also agreed that a warning combined with a fee of SEK 4m and SEK 40m respectively is a proportionate response to the infringements in question.

Why it matters

Operators licensed in Sweden could need to check that their deposit-limit functions and duty-of-care procedures meet the standard Spelinspektionen applies, because two appeal-court rulings now back the regulator's view that failures in these areas can justify a warning plus a substantial fee. Compliance teams could use the rulings as a reference point when reviewing how limits are set, applied and monitored.

The outcome also shows how fee levels are tested in court. The lower court set the fees at SEK 4m and SEK 40m, and the appeal court left those amounts in place. For licence holders, the figures could give a concrete indication of the scale of financial exposure when the regulator and the courts find serious infringements, although each fee depends on the company's own circumstances.

The cases ran from the regulator's decisions of 24 April 2023 to the appeal judgments of 8 October 2026. That sequence is likely to matter for budgeting, since enforcement actions in Sweden can remain open through several appeal stages.

Affiliates working with Swedish-licensed partners could ask those partners how they are handling the same obligations, since the rulings concern duty-of-care and deposit-limit requirements in the regulated market.