Macau’s Court of Final Appeal has ruled that gaming concessionaires are not companies operating under a franchise system and that their employees should not considered civil servants.
The issue arose following a case in which a casino dealer working for Sands China used his position to conspire with customers and assist them in cheating to obtain winnings.
The dealer was subsequently convicted of “official misappropriation” by the Trial Court and sentenced to three years and six months in prison. However, the defendant appealed this decision to the Intermediate Court, arguing that Sands was not the only company in Macau operating games of chance and that that he should be convicted of abuse of trust instead because he did not qualify as a “civil servant” under the Criminal Law.
The Intermediate Court found the defendant guilty of abuse of trust, but also claimed the defendant should be classified as a “prospective civil servant”.
The prosecutor’s office subsequently appealed this finding to the Court of Final Appeal, arguing that the Intermediate Court’s ruling was “clearly contradictory”.
Central to the whole affair was Macau’s penal code, first enforced in 1995, which states that civil servants include anyone working for a company operating on an exclusive basis. However, this code was formulated before the liberalization of the Macau casino industry in 2001.
On Sunday, The Court of Final Appeal issued its ruling in favor of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, holding that the concessionaire was not “franchised” in gaming activities, was not an independent licensee and that its employees should therefore not be considered civil servants. This essentially means that gaming employees should not face the same level of criminal responsibility as government employees.
“The Macau companies that operate games of chance are not operated under the franchise system, and the staff of these companies are not the same as civil servants,” the court said.
The Court held that the word “franchise” as it relates to the industry in Macau means exclusive operation, and not a situation where multiple companies are operating with special approval from the government.
“Under the framework of the law and other relevant legislation, the right to operate games of chance in a casino is no longer granted on a franchise basis and the concessionaire is no longer operating on a franchise basis,” it added.
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