Spanish Court Declines to Fine NordVPN over LaLiga Piracy Blocking Order

Recorded: May 23, 2026, 7:58 a.m.

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Spanish Court Declines to Fine NordVPN Over LaLiga Piracy Blocking Order * TorrentFreak

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Spanish Court Declines to Fine NordVPN Over LaLiga Piracy Blocking Order

today by
Ernesto Van der Sar

Home > Anti-Piracy > Site Blocking >

Three months after a Spanish court ordered NordVPN and ProtonVPN to block pirate football streams, NordVPN says the same court has refused to punish the provider for non-compliance. The VPN company says the Commercial Court of Córdoba rejected LaLiga's request for coercive fines, accepting that there was a genuine technical dispute over whether the blocking could be implemented.

In February, the Commercial Court No. 1 of Córdoba labeled VPN services as “technological intermediaries,” ordering them to actively block IP addresses that host illegal LaLiga matches.
The “dynamic” injunction specifically targeted NordVPN and ProtonVPN and it was granted without the companies being heard. In addition, there was no immediate right of appeal either.
Both VPN providers questioned the Spanish court’s jurisdiction, as they are both incorporated outside the EU. NordVPN called the approach unacceptable and warned of overblocking.
LaLiga, in its turn, pointed out that NordVPN failed to fully implement the Spanish interim order, and it asked the court to punish the VPN provider with fines.
Fines Rejected
According to NordVPN, the court declined this request. In a blog post published today, the company says the Córdoba judge dismissed LaLiga’s request for coercive fines, because it could not conclude that NordVPN had deliberately and without justification breached the February order.
The technical evidence that NordVPN presented in court relied on two points.
1. The flagged IP addresses changed frequently, often within hours, so the provided lists no longer matched the live addresses by the time blocking could take effect.
2. The blanket IP-level blocking demanded would have resulted in broad overblocking, rendering thousands of lawful websites inaccessible to users in Spain and beyond.
“What the ruling does is confirm something we said openly from day one — the technical concerns are real and evidenced, and a Spanish court has now recognized that,” the blog post reads.
The court’s findings, as described to TorrentFreak by NordVPN, are more measured. The company says the judge accepted its technical evidence as relevant to compliance but stopped short of ruling its experts right and LaLiga’s wrong, instead finding that the two reports deserved “the same consideration” while reaching “the opposite conclusion.”
For a closer look, TorrentFreak asked NordVPN for a copy of the order, but the company said it could not share it at this stage.
Update: Shortly after publication, LaLiga informed TorrentFreak that it couldn’t share a copy of the order either. The league confirms that the decision merely sets aside the coercive fines while the proceedings continue, stressing that it does not exempt NordVPN from implementing IP blocks where LaLiga can prove piracy is taking place.
Not the Final Word
By NordVPN’s own account, the decision is narrow. The company describes it as a procedural ruling at the preliminary stage, not a judgment on the merits. This means that the main proceedings are still ahead.
At the same time, the VPN provider also points out that there is broader opposition growing against the Spanish blocking effort, where overblocking affected legal sites and services at Cloudflare, Vercel, GitHub, Docker, and elsewhere.
“Inside Spain, the consequences of indiscriminate IP blocking have become almost impossible to ignore,” NordVPN writes.
The friction has reached parliament. On April 29, a congressional committee passed a non-binding motion urging the government to reform Spain’s Digital Services Law, introducing a principle of “technological proportionality” to address and limit overblocking.
For now, however, the original February injunction remains in place and the underlying case continues. Whether the technical objections that NordVPN presented in court will also hold up when they are reviewed on the merits has yet to be seen.

Tagged In:

LaLiga
nordvpn
site blocking
Spain

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The Spanish Commercial Court of Córdoba declined to impose coercive fines on NordVPN following a request made by LaLiga seeking punishment for non-compliance with an initial order concerning the blocking of pirate football streams. This decision occurred three months after the court had initially labeled VPN services as "technological intermediaries" and ordered them to actively block IP addresses hosting illegal LaLiga matches, an injunction that was issued without hearing the VPN providers or granting an immediate right of appeal.

NordVPN argued that the court's refusal to fine the provider was based on valid technical concerns regarding the feasibility and impact of the blocking order. The company contended that the technical evidence presented in court demonstrated that the provided lists of flagged IP addresses were transient, changing frequently, and therefore did not accurately reflect live addresses at the time of implementation. Furthermore, NordVPN asserted that implementing a blanket IP-level block would result in significant overblocking, rendering thousands of lawful websites inaccessible to users both in Spain and internationally.

While NordVPN maintained that the court accepted its technical evidence as relevant to compliance, the judge refrained from definitively ruling the experts right or wrong. Instead, the court apparently accorded "the same consideration" to both sets of reports while reaching "the opposite conclusion." This ruling suggests a procedural determination rather than a final judgment on the merits of the implementation dispute.

LaLiga contended that NordVPN had failed to fully execute the Spanish interim order and requested fines against the VPN provider for this non-compliance. However, the court determined that it could not establish that NordVPN had deliberately and without justification breached the February order, leading to the dismissal of the request for coercive fines.

Beyond the specifics of the fine dispute, the situation highlights broader friction regarding the scope of IP blocking measures. NordVPN noted that the decision was narrowly procedural, leaving the underlying legal proceedings unresolved. Concurrently, the VPN provider pointed out that there is a growing opposition against the Spanish blocking efforts, citing instances where indiscriminate IP blocking negatively affected legal services and websites hosted by entities such as Cloudflare, Vercel, GitHub, and Docker. This challenge has escalated to the political level, as a congressional committee passed a non-binding motion advocating for the reform of Spain’s Digital Services Law to introduce a principle of "technological proportionality" aimed at limiting overblocking. Consequently, the original February injunction remains in effect, and the dispute continues pending a full review of the technical objections on the merits.