MrQ hit with £690,947 regulatory action in UK

Lindar Media Limited, trading as MrQ in the United Kingdom, has been hit with a regulatory action amounting to £690,947.

A payment will have to be made by the operator, and it will be used to back socially responsible causes and is part of a settlement with the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) which has found the operator in breach of social responsibility and anti-money laundering mandates, as outlined by law. This payment comes in lieu of a financial penalty, the regulator explained.

The UKGC has conducted a thorough review of the operator and found a number of breaches tied to offenses as outlined by the License Conditions and Codes of Practice. Essentially, there were weaknesses in the operator’s AML polices, controls, and procedures, which meant that the licensee wasn’t doing enough to protect consumers and maintain the integrity of the industry.

Among the problems were issues with the operator’s social responsibility, which included products that were not advertised as mandated by law. MrQ also failed to contribute sufficient funds to research, prevention, and treatment, as required by law.

Lindar Media responded to the statement by the UKGC by arguing that much has improved in its internal structure and the breaches that the regulator had brought to light were already fixed.

In the publicly available statement, the regulator has outlined the issues with MrQ’s operations in specificity, including a breach of license condition 12.1.1(1) which states that operators must meet money laundering and terrorist financing risks in full.

Not sufficient assessment of these risks has been made. The commission found issues with SRCP 5.1.6. which specifically concerns advertising. Cartoon imagery that was not in a "restricted gateway" featured King Kong cash pots, Piggy Bank Bills, and The Doghouse Megaways, and was found to hold an appeal with children, which is in breach of regulation as well.

In deciding the outcome of the case, the Commission considered mitigating factors, such as the operator’s full cooperation, and agreement to make the facts of the case and review public. The operator also agreed to cover the Commission’s investigative costs.

Although a financial penalty as such has not been issued, the sum that MrQ is ordered to pay is owing to the serious nature of the specific breaches, the fact that the Commission has already dealt and published information about how to avoid similar accidents, and not least – the regulator factoring in the possibility of other customers having been impacted by these practices that the regulator still does not know about.

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