Rome court orders Global Starnet to repay €74,840 to Fedelgiochi

Rome's Seventeenth Civil Section has ordered Global Starnet Limited to repay Fedelgiochi s.r.l. in liquidazione €74,840.37, plus legal interest from the filing of the judgment until settlement, according to a judgment filed on 26 October 2026. The court found that the sum had been received without legal basis as a share of the extraordinary levy introduced by the 2015 Stability Law.

The dispute arose from a contract between the parties for the collection of gambling through AWP machines under article 110, paragraph 6, letter a), of the T.U.L.P.S. By notice of 9 February 2015, the concessionaire set the levy share owed by the operator at €1,177.27 for each of the 95 machines concerned, a total of €111,840.65, which was paid in full. In March 2016 the concessionaire notified a recalculation to €1,965.06 per machine, equal to €186,681.07, without ever clarifying the criteria used, including during the proceedings. The operator paid the difference with an express reservation of repayment, solely to obtain authorisation to transfer the contract.

The court held that article 1, paragraphs 920 and 921, of Law 208/2015, in giving an authentic interpretation of the levy, did not change the criterion for determining the charge on concessionaires, which remains proportional to the number of machines attributable at 31 December 2014 under the 15 January 2015 directorate decree of the Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli. The provision addressed only the internal allocation among operators in the chain, by the legal criterion of proportionality to each party's share in the distribution of the compensation under the contractual agreements, with no further renegotiation required.

The later recalculation therefore had no basis in the supervening rule, which introduced no greater charge than the concessionaire had already quantified in February 2015, the court found. The higher amount could not be justified by the late payment of one of the 10 instalments either: the levy rules provide for no change to the allocation criteria in the event of delay, which entails only the loss of the reduced rate (€77.27 per machine) offered for punctual payment. The excess amount paid is therefore an undue payment, recoverable under article 2033 of the Civil Code.

According to the source, the decision ends the application of the so-called recalculation mechanism applied by Global Starnet Limited. Fedelgiochi s.r.l. in liquidazione was represented by Avv. Vincenzo Sapone and Avv. Micaela Malinverno of the Como bar. The source gives no statement from Global Starnet and no information on any appeal.