CHILE – Comptroller to begin to audit SCJ’s concession of Viña del Mar casino
Chile’s casino regulator is said to have “acted outside the law” to favour leading operator Enjoy
While it is true that Contraloría General de la República – Chile’s Comptroller has accepted that the country’s casino regulator, Superintendencia de Casinos de Juego (SCJ) is free from “violation of the principle of administrative probity on the part” of Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera, or his trust in the matter related to the casino operator Enjoy S.A., the case of the concession of the Viña del Mar casino is still pending.
The newspaper El Mostrador explains that SCJ “did not comply with the law by suspending the procedure of verification in compliance of legal and regulatory requirements for the start of operations of Casino del Mar S.A., ordered by the SCJ through its exempt resolution No. 56, dated January 29, 2021”
In relation to the municipal casino of Viña del Mar, won in the last concession by Enjoy under the name Casino del Mar S.A., the Chilean Association of Casinos (ACCJ by its Spanish acronym) considers of “utmost gravity” statements made by the Comptroller General of the Republic, when it points out that the SCJ, “acted outside the law and we value the decision to initiate an audit”, on the actions of the Chilean casino regulator in relation to this concession.
In a statement, ACCJ believes that all matters related to the Viña del Mar casino concession, “not only have a legal connotation, but also damage the international image of Chile as a safe country for foreign investment, for the misinterpretation of the legislation to be applied for the renewal of casino operating permits, and destroys the legal security that in 2005 enabled an unprecedented investment in the country
“For more than a year, the casino industry has been pointing out that several actions by the regulator are contrary to law and we have been forced to present cases (relative to such actions) to the Courts of Justice, where we hope that there will soon be a definitive ruling on the merits of those cases.”
