Ban on gambling advertising in Bucharest — Between political will and regulatory principles

On September 17, 2025, a draft decision of the General Council of Bucharest that would restrict, among others, outdoor advertising for gambling was published on the Bucharest City Hall website.

by Ana-Maria Baciu, Managing Partner and Andrei Cosma, Partner BACIU PARTNERS

Ana-Maria Baciu – Managing Partner, BACIU PARTNERS

Andrei Cosma, Partner BACIU PARTNERS

According to the draft, outdoor advertising would initially be restricted, from January 1, 2026, on all movable and immovable property belonging to the public and private domain of the Municipality of Bucharest; subsequently (starting September 1, 2026) billboards placed on the public and private domain of the Municipality of Bucharest would be restricted; and beginning January 1, 2029 the restriction would also apply during sporting events held on the public and private domain of the same municipality.

We do not intend in this article to analyze how these restrictions would be applied (which are, in any case, rather unclear), but we believe it is worth setting out a few observations from a purely legal/technical perspective regarding the legality of such restrictions enacted by a local authority.

As a principle, any regulation must respect the hierarchy of legal norms: a norm with superior legal force may modify a norm with inferior legal force, but a norm with inferior legal force is obliged to comply with one of superior force.

This principle must be applied in every situation where normative acts are drafted and is expressly provided for in Law no. 24/2000 on legislative technique rules for drafting normative acts. More specifically, Article 4 of Law no. 24/2000 explicitly states that “normative acts must be elaborated according to their hierarchy, their category and the public authority competent to adopt them (…)” and that “normative acts issued in the execution of laws, ordinances or Government decisions are issued within and according to the rules that order them.”

In this context, the legitimate question arises whether the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest has the competence to adopt rules banning gambling advertising by means of a decision of the General Council.

Far from being merely a question of local opportunity, in our view, the proposal under discussion raises essential illegality concerns stemming from failure to respect the hierarchy of normative acts described above: one cannot derogate from a law that regulates the limits of gambling advertising by issuing an administrative act with normative content that has legal force inferior to the law.

Thus, a possible decision of a Local/General Council that would prohibit or additionally limit, beyond the law, the conditions for outdoor advertising for gambling would constitute an administrative act of a normative character, through which the law is put into effect. Article 2(c) of Law no. 554/2004 defines the administrative act as “the unilateral act with individual or normative character issued by a public authority, in a regime of public power, for the purpose of organizing the execution of the law or of concretely executing the law, which gives rise to, modifies or extinguishes legal relations.”

Such an administrative act of a normative character may be issued only in application of the law and within its limits. The normative pyramid categorically requires that an administrative act comply with legal provisions having superior legal force. An administrative act issued in application of a law or another act with superior legal force cannot add further restrictions to those already inserted in the law, unless the law itself leaves such a margin of maneuver to the authorities applying the law — for example through Methodological Norms that could regulate matters of detail.

In other laws where there may be a public interest in recognizing a certain margin of maneuver for local authorities to adapt the law’s content to local community needs, such legislative delegation is expressly provided: for example, Ordinance no. 99/2000 on the sale of market products and services provides that sales outlets may be opened to the public in accordance with requests from the local public administration (Article 8); thus, the local authority would have legislative delegation to set a schedule appropriate to the community it serves. In the absence of such explicit delegation, the local authority cannot limit the rights of natural or legal persons to a greater extent than provided by the law with superior legal force.

Ban on gambling advertising

In the case of the gambling industry, the basic normative act is Government Emergency Ordinance no. 77/2009, which has the legal force of a law. This normative act expressly allows gambling advertising provided certain conditions are respected, and there is no provision indicating that such advertising is completely prohibited on the territory of certain localities or that local authorities may decide to apply stricter rules at the level of the communities they administer.

Therefore, given that the special legislation in the field of gambling expressly permits advertising of these activities under certain conditions, we consider that a normative act of inferior legal force (such as a decision of the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest) cannot impose a total restriction on advertising at the level of a locality.

According to the Administrative Code (Emergency Ordinance no. 57/2019), Article 129, which regulates the duties of the local council, “the local council has initiative and decides, under the conditions of the law, on all matters of local interest, except those that are expressly assigned by law to the competence of other local or central public administration authorities.” In the present case, advertising rules for gambling cannot be established by local authorities because the competence to regulate is not conferred on these local authorities by Government Emergency Ordinance no. 77/2009.

For all these reasons, we consider that the current draft decision of the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest presents potential illegality flaws that could be challenged by interested parties.

BACIU PARTNERS