Antigua to Seek Billions in Compensation from US

The tiny dual island nation of Antigua and Barbuda will seek billions of dollars in compensation annually from the United States, after the US was forced into an embarrassing back-down at the World Trade Organization last month.

Bloomberg news reports that Antigua will file its claim ahead of the June 22 deadline imposed by the WTO, with reports over $3 billion a year will be the amount claimed, primarily through the suspension of global copyright and intellectual property rights (TRIPS) agreements.

Antigua and Barbuda, a tiny nation in the Caribbean, started a David vs. Goliath battle with the United States in 2003, filing a claim with the WTO disputes panel over US protectionist moves to ban overseas-based online gambling companies from accepting American customers. Antigua claimed the US was not in compliance with trade commitments made when it joined the WTO.

Antigua won their first encounter against the US at the WTO, resulting in an immediate US appeal. Antigua defeated the US in the appeal earlier this year. Instead of agreeing to honor its trade commitments, the US took the unprecedented move of changing their original agreement to remove online gambling. US trade officials claimed their original agreement to open their market to offshore online gambling was a mistake. Needless to say, they came under heavy global criticism for taking this position, with many commentators believing that being allowed to reverse positions on an agreement has the potential to make the WTO ineffectual.

Under WTO rules, member states who feel they have been disadvantaged by the US repositioning can file claims for compensation. The European Union announced this week they intend to claim, announcing they would seek commitments in other trade sectors to compensate for losses incurred by European-based online gambling operators (such as PartyGaming and 888 Ltd) who had to exit the US market.

Dr. Errol Cort, the Antigua and Barbuda minister of finance, has expressed his disappointed with the behavior of the US over this issue, lamenting the fact that the US had refused to negotiate with the tiny nation, forcing them to pursue the matter through the WTO. He was quoted as saying: "We feel we have no other choice in the matter, we have fought long and hard for fair access to the U.S. market and have won at every stage of the WTO process…This industry has been and can be regulated.''

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