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The long-running, occasionally tragicomic trade dispute between America and tiny Antigua at the WTO over the cross-border provision of gambling services has sputtered into the settlement phase, according to CasinoGamblingWeb.

Although Antigua has roundly defeated its lumbering, puritanical northern neighbor at every step of the way in its WTO case, the US still seems disinclined to address the WTO ruling seriously. The current administration seems content to drag its heels as long as it can, in the hopes, as always, of foisting difficult policy decisions off on whatever administration has the misfortune to follow.

The ramifications of that defeat are still rippling around the world, and major American trading partners such as the EU and Japan have begun lining up behind the Antiguans in defense of WTO principles. Potential damages are really starting to pile up - the AP reported today that EU online gambling firms are pressing for $100 bil in damages.

Traditional trade sanctions would do little for a small country like Antigua, so the WTO rules allow smaller countries the option of suspending their own WTO commitments, and the Antiguans have been threatening to suspend their intellectual property obligations to the US. That in turn ultimately caught the attention of powerful Silicon Valley and Hollywood interests, and last week the mainstream American press suddenly discovered that something important was happening.

Antigua filed a claim with the WTO for $3.4 bil to compensate the little island nation for the economic fallout resulting from repeated American legal attacks on Antigua-based internet gambling providers. The US has countered with an offer of - ahem - $500,000. The EU, however, is the largest and most dynamic online gambling market in the world, and the US is trying to buy that claim out by offering to liberalize such dynamic, hot-growth economic sectors as warehousing and storage services.

As Mark Mendel, lead attorney for the Antiguans, told El Reg, "But anyway, the U.S. in its submission said our damages were only $500,000 a year. Our $3.4 billion claim is per annum from April, 2006. In the WTO system, you cannot get compensation for past harm, it is only starting with the end of the supposed compliance period. I feel pretty good about our numbers, and I think the U.S. typically shot themselves in the foot by being so cavalierly dismissive of our claims with that ridiculous number. But, we shall soon see — a decision will be out by the end of November."®

Burke Hansen, attorney at large, heads a San Francisco law office

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