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Antiqua effectively loses its case

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  1. JPFisher55 JPFisher55 is offline

    Saint Louis, MO
    United States

    Posts: 28
    Joined: Dec 07

    Dec 21st, 2007 (12/21/2007 11:10am)

    It appears that the arbitrators failed to include their $104 million estimate of Antiqua's loss for all remote gambling in its award and just included its award of $21 million for lost revenue due to not being able to offer pari-mutual horse racing. But this does not matter because even with the $104 million the award is minimal. Clearly the WTO wimped out but tried to appear to be tough by awarding Antiqua its IP relief. But its compensation award is so small that the whole award is useless to Antiqua.
    IMO this makes the WTO meaningless to all but the largest members. We now know why the EU quickly settled for little compensation. Clearly, they found out about this decision before it was announced. I will be interested to see what Antiqua does. If I were making their decision, I would withdraw from the WTO and take what measures that I desired. But violating US IP laws would have serious consequences. Anyone doing so might not be able to travel to the US. Effectively Antiqua has lost its case.
    Obviously, Congress will not be pressured by it to comply with the WTO decision for Antiqua. So the WTO decision can only matter in a US court of law. The decision is one argument used by iMEGA and the basis for the defendants' motion to dismiss in the Kaplan/Carruthers case. I doubt that the district court judge in either case will enforce the WTO decision, but a federal court of appeals might. But to get to the federal court of appeals will take 1-3 more years.
    In the meantime, whether the UIGEA can, or will, be enforced is still in question.
    A very dissappointing day and week.
  2. Dan Dan is offline Administrator

    Posts: 5,255
    Joined: May 06

    Dec 21st, 2007 (12/21/2007 3:57pm) in reply to JPFisher55

    Antigua did ask for quite a bit of money, $3.4 billion. However, the discrepency between that figure and the $21 million in benefits it was awarded is huge.

    Neither the EU nor Antigua agreements seem to be very deleterious towards the United States. It appears like an internal push is the best bet.
     
  3. keebler keebler is offline

    Pequannock, NJ
    United States

    Posts: 66
    Joined: Oct 06

    Dec 21st, 2007 (12/21/2007 10:50pm) in reply to Dan

    It could help if we could try to hype this up and get some spin on it. Show people that laws banning poker harm other industries, even if it's only slight. If only someone covered it.

    I saw it on the ticker of some BBC world news channel, but who watches the BBC in America...
  4. LadyPokerWriter LadyPokerWriter is offline

    Dahlonega, GA
    United States

    Posts: 54
    Joined: Nov 07

    Dec 22nd, 2007 (12/22/2007 12:45pm) in reply to JPFisher55

    It may be an award, which is more than the US wanted to pay, however, I agree this won't change anything. which just stinks to no end.
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