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World Trade Organization Rules UIGEA is Illegal |
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  Bloomberg.com reported yesterday that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled the US ban on offshore internet gambling to be in breach of international trade law, leading to many online gambling investors to believe their shares will rocket upwards on Monday when the market reopens.
The WTO said the US ignored its previous ruling that challenged the US ban on payments to gambling web sites whilst allowing bets on its own soil, deeming the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) to be a protectionist practice and therefore illegal under WTO rules.
Antigua and Barbuda, a tiny nation of only 80,000 people in the Caribbean islands, challenged the world's economic superpower in a modern-day David and Goliath story. When President Bush signed the UIGEA into law after it was attached to the must-pass Safe Ports Act, he effectively closed the door on a $12 billion global industry to US residents, which accounted for around half of the online gambling market. Some companies were savaged by the expected legislation, with PartyGaming and 888 pulling out of the US market immediately, with many more following in the next few months, including the world's premier payment processor NETeller, following the US government arrests of two of their founders in January.
The Antiguan delegation to the WTO was celebrating last night with news of their stunning victory. "Today's ruling vindicates all that we have been saying for years about the discriminatory trade practices of the United States,'' Antiguan Finance Minister Errol Cort said in an e- mailed statement.
Antigua was the smallest country to ever lodge a WTO complaint two years ago when they scored a victory against the US online gambling restrictions when the WTO found in April 2005 that the US had reneged on their pledge to open up the industry to international competition ten years earlier. The latest WTO ruling is a rejection of the US appeal against the 2005 ruling.
The US admitted that the latest ruling found it failed to comply with the two-year-old decision, but claims the report allows it to maintain a ban on internet gambling to "protect public order and public morals" as long as it doesn't discriminate against foreign companies, said Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the US Trade Representative's office in Washington.
Hamel said "we are currently reviewing our options", saying the 1995 commitment to open gambling up to foreign companies was an oversight of the Clinton administration.
The WTO decision is a moral victory for Antigua and for free trade, but analysts were left wondering how the US would react to the decision. Antigua is too small to effectively impose trade sanctions against the US, even though they can now do that under the WTO ruling.
Some analysts believe Europe may use this decision to lodge a similar complaint with the WTO against the US, in the knowledge they would almost surely be successful, and this would almost certainly force the US to take action.
Charlie McCreevey, commissioner for the European Union's internal market, sent online gambling shares through the roof a couple months ago when he labeled the UIGEA as "a protectionist measure", saying the EU might seek action against the US in the future.
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