ANTIGUA MOVES ON USA WITH REQUEST FOR RETALIATORY MEASURES

27 July 2007

World Trade Organisation approached on $3.4 billion commercial sanctions

Antigua and Barbuda took the next step in its dispute over online gambling with the United States this week when it approached the World Trade Organisation in Geneva for the right to authorise up to $3.4 billion in commercial sanctions against its opponent on grounds that the US has failed to comply with an earlier and final WTO ruling on the issue.

The Associated Press news service reports that although the US government has acknowledged that its online betting ban was ruled illegal by the WTO, it has challenged Antigua's right to retaliate, claiming that it is in the unprecedented process of rewriting its obligations under a 1994 WTO treaty in order to remove online gambling from the agreement.

The US Trade Representative also submitted that the amount requested in compensation by Antigua was "patently excessive."

"The level sought by Antigua and Barbuda is several times higher than Antigua and Barbuda's annual gross domestic product of all goods and services," U.S. trade lawyer Juan Millan told the WTO's dispute settlement body.

The WTO has set up an arbitration panel to rule on the matter.

The moves are the latest in a long running series of World Trade Organisation rulings and appeals in the dispute dating back to 2003. Earlier this year the trade body confirmed that the Americans had the right to prevent online gambling on moral grounds....but this right could not be claimed whilst a discriminatory application of the rules permitted American operators to offer remote betting on horse and dog racing and fantasy sports.

There are 32 licensed online casinos in the former British colony, employing 1 000 people and generating around $130 million in annual revenue.

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