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Department of Justice to Blame?

The dispute between Antigua, and the United States, that has gone all the way to the World Trade Organisation, could rest primarily on the shoulders of the U.S. Department of Justice. The WTO became involved in the dispute earlier this year when the U.S. banned all offshore online casino activities and effectively shut down Antigua’s primary source of income; the island’s economy relied on U.S. internet gambling revenue. But since the WTO stepped in as an intermediary on behalf of the rest of the world and the online casinos industry, the U.S. Department of Justice has rejected any rulings and negotiations – which could, in the end, have a detrimental effect on the U.S. economy.

Legal counsel for Antigua, a company based out of Texas, is extremely critical of the U.S. response to this international issue related to the online casinos industry. Mark Mendel, a representative from Mendel-Blumenfeld, places much of the blame directly on the Department of Justice (DoJ). He says, “What I have finally concluded is that this case is almost 100 percent about the DoJ.” The DoJ has responded on behalf of the U.S. at every stage of the game – from negotiations with Antigua to trials and hearings at the WTO. Mendel alleges that a few key politicians in the DoJ have antiquated ideas about the online casino gambling industry, Mendel feels that “remote gambling has been hijacked of sorts by a kind of dated old crowd in the DoJ who are still lost in the days of Bugsy Malone and smoky backrooms when gambling was run by the mob.”

The effect of these ideas though in the DoJ could mean some serious retaliation from other countries since the U.S. refuses to nudge from its strict ban on remote online casino gambling in the United States. Antigua was the first of the foreign companies hurt by the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) to threaten the U.S. by any means they could – specifically the Antiguan government released a statement that they would begin attacking U.S. patents and copyrights. From that point on, other countries, and most notably, the European Union, joined in on threats against the U.S. The EU has perhaps the most power to truly cripple the U.S. If the EU stops certain trade agreements not related to the online casinos industry (auto parts and more) the U.S. would be hard pressed not to come to heel quickly.