A Spanish court has refused to fine NordVPN for failing to block pirate LaLiga football streams. The Commercial Court of Córdoba dismissed LaLiga's request for coercive fines, accepting that there was a genuine technical dispute over whether the blocking order could be implemented. This represents a significant interim victory for the VPN provider.

In February, Commercial Court No. 1 of Córdoba labeled VPN services as "technological intermediaries" and ordered them to actively block IP addresses hosting illegal LaLiga matches. The injunction targeted both NordVPN and ProtonVPN and was granted without hearing the companies first, with no immediate right of appeal. Both providers challenged the Spanish court's jurisdiction, noting they are incorporated outside the EU.

NordVPN presented technical evidence showing the flagged IP addresses changed within hours, making provided lists obsolete before blocking could take effect. The company also warned that blanket IP-level blocking would overblock thousands of legitimate websites. The judge accepted these technical arguments as relevant to compliance but didn't rule definitively on which side was correct.

The original February injunction remains in place while proceedings continue on the merits. The blocking effort sparked broader backlash—legal services at Cloudflare, Vercel, GitHub, and Docker were affected. On April 29, a Spanish congressional committee passed a motion urging reform of the Digital Services Law to address overblocking.