Legal Aid To Antigua WTO Case Suggests Ways To Increase The $21 Million A Year Already Awarded

In a recent interview with the Antigua Sun this week, Antigua and Barbuda's legal representative in its struggle with the United States in the case before the World Trade Organization on gambling, Mark Mendel, suggests that this could turn out to be more expensive for the United States than is currently the case.

Mendel has astutely guided Antigua to success during the several years of the complex WTO litigation. He indicates that the decision by a World Trade Organization arbitrator to place a limit on Antigua and Barbuda’s claim against the US with a maximum of US$21 million per year, may not be absolute.

Mendel in a visit to Antigua, has said that there is a process which is available by which the arbitration decision of December 2007, might be reviewed. Lacking any real automatic appeals process for such decisions, Mendel stated that the complete injustice of the decision was thought to give Antigua and Barbuda the right to take the matter up before the General Council of the WTO.
In their original case against the United States, Antigua and Barbuda sought US$3.4 billion per year in compensation. The arbitration panel however, limited that claim to losses related to bets on online horse racing, which represents only a small portion of the overall Internet

Gambling industry and reflects only a tiny part of the true cost of the US ban to the islands.
 
Mendel mentioned that taking such a case to the General Council of the WTO would be unique, having never been done before. But he sees his case as groundbreaking since a lot of what’s happened has never happened before.

He says however, that there is the possibility of carrying this out in the light of the high level of dissatisfaction with the financial conclusion of the December decision. Mendel notes that many countries agree that this was no a good decision making it possible to pursue greater justice.

He does mention however, that at the moment no such decision has been made to pursue this direction, since the government is presently continuing with yet another round of negotiations with the Office of the US Trade Representative and is preparing for more high-level meetings in Washington next month.

Mendel notes that the number one goal is still to reach a fair and respectable negotiated settlement with the United States that could obviate any long drawn-out and expensive additional litigation.

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