Minister of Finance and the Economy, Honourable Harold Lovell, today announced that his government is working on preparations to re-engage with the World Trade Organisation in the long-standing dispute with the United States over international trade in remote gaming services.  Having won a landmark decision from the WTO in 2004 that United States laws criminalising remote gaming services offered to American consumers from Antigua were in violation of US international treaty obligations, Antigua and Barbuda has been unable despite sustained efforts to either get the United States to comply with the WTO ruling or to negotiate any nature of reasonable compromise to settle the dispute.

Last December’s surprise announcement by the United States Department of Justice that United States law did not prohibit many forms of internet gambling has been a game changer.  Although the United States had lost the case at the WTO, its defence was predicated on its stated position that American laws prohibited all remote gaming, because the activity was so pernicious that it was incapable of being regulated to protect the public interest.  Publicly, the United States had continued to use its supposed prohibition of all remote gaming as a basis for continued non-compliance with its international trade obligations.  “Now that the entire basis for the United States objection to allowing our trade in remote gaming services has gone away,” observed Minister Lovell, “it is increasingly impossible to understand why the United States has not complied with this decision.”

Barring last minute negotiation success with United States officials, Antigua and Barbuda has a number of options at the WTO with which to push the recalcitrant American government into compliance.  “In the coming days,” concluded the Minister, “the government will be consulting with appropriate officials and legal counsel to determine the best way forward for our people and industry.  We played by the rules and earned a hard-fought and fair victory–it is high-time that the United States do what it routinely expects from its own trading partners–comply with WTO law and rulings.”