The US seems to be playing a holding game with its international gaming complaints: on one hand the US Trade Representative keeps postponing a meeting with EU delegates, and on the other hand the deadline for settling the dispute between the US and the Caribbean island of Antigua has been changed once more, this time to October 1st.
The dispute between the US and Antigua has been going on for years, and it reached a high point when the small island nation filed a complaint against the US with the World Trade Organization, which ruled in favor of Antigua stating that the US had indeed gone back on its trade commitments when it made online gaming illegal. After losing a number of appeals, the US finally went back and altered its General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS,) withdrawing gaming from the list of services which were to be traded freely. This exposed the US to lawsuits from WTO countries whose economies were affected by the change, which meant the USTR had to negotiate with and compensate the U.K., Japan and Canada among other countries.
This is where the current conflict started: while Antigua demanded $3.4 billion in compensation for the damage done, the US made an initial offer of $500,000. Antigua did not hesitate to bring the WTO back in, and the WTO dictated an annual compensation of $21 million. But instead of bringing the issue to an end, this decision fuelled a lengthy and protracted negotiation process which has just reached its fifth missed and renewed deadline.
Antigua’s attorney at the WTO, Mark Mendel, recently declared to the Antigua Sun that the negotiations are “delicate and take some time,” which shows a marked difference from previous statements which were much more optimistic. Some sources believe that Antigua‘s Minister of Finance Dr. Errol Cort has been too accomodating towards the US in these last negotiation phases, repeatedly allowing for new deadlines instead of pressing for a resolution. Antigua is expecting the compensation to come inthe shape of an exemption from trademarks and copyright restrictions.
