Online Gambling Press

Antigua's top finance official says another deadline has been set with Washington to resolve a feud over Internet gambling after recent talks have fizzled. Antigua accuses the U.S. of crippling its gambling industry by banning Americans from placing online bets with gambling operators, including those in the twin-island country. Twice this month, World Trade Organization deadlines passed without resolution. The WTO last year backed Antigua's

Antigua and Barbuda's top finance official said Wednesday he is hopeful that a high-level meeting in Washington with a U.S. trade official could lead to resolution of a dispute over Internet gambling. Antigua accuses the U.S. of crippling its gambling industry by banning Americans from placing online bets with gambling operators, including those based in the twin-island nation of 70,000 people. Last month, the World Trade Organization backed Antigua's request to target U.S. services, copyrights and trademarks in retaliation for a U.S. online betting ban, but ruled it could impose only $21 million in annual trade sanctions.

Arbitrators have ruled that Antigua can suspend its intellectual property obligations to the United States in retaliation for the U.S. prohibition of online gambling. In a 97-page report released last week, a panel weighing Antigua's complaint that the online gambling ban violates free trade agreements said that Antigua has no effective trade sanctions against the United States in terms of services and agreed that the country could suspend copyright, trademark, and intellectual property obligations. The decision means Antigua can take copyright-protected U.S. goods, like CDs and software, and sell them without copyright protection. The value of the goods can total  [ Read More ]

Antigua and Barbuda are entitled to levy $21 million a year in sanctions against the United States for being shut out of the U.S. online gambling market, a World Trade Organisation (WTO) arbitrator ruled on Friday. The tiny Caribbean nation can exercise the sanctions in intellectual property, such as films and music, for instance by lifting copyright protection, as well as in services, which includes sectors such as banking and telecommunications as well as gambling, he said. Antigua had asked the WTO for permission to impose $3.44 billion in “cross-retaliation”, allowing it to seek damages outside the original services sector.  [ Read More ]