Antigua “losing all hope” of U.S. payout in gambling dispute

GENEVA, (Reuters) - Antigua and Barbuda is “losing all hope” of a financial settlement in a long-running dispute with the United States and it may ask the head of the World Trade Organization to mediate, Antiguan ambassador Ronald Sanders told the WTO today.

The United States responded by accusing Antigua and Barbuda of playing politics.

The tiny archipelago built up an Internet gambling industry to replace declining tourism revenues, only to find itself shut out of the world’s biggest gambling market.

It took its case to the WTO in 2003 and eventually won the right to compensation of $21 million annually, after the WTO judges upheld its complaint that U.S. laws were discriminatory.

Washington has not paid out, and Sanders said his country had lost $315 million so far, equivalent to more than a quarter of its annual GDP and less than 0.1 percent of the U.S. economy.

Although the WTO awarded Antigua the right to use trade sanctions to recoup its losses, it opted for a settlement.

“We continued to hope that a sense of justice and fairness would prevail. But, we are now losing all hope,” Sanders told the WTO’s dispute settlement body, according to a copy of his remarks provided to Reuters.

“After a long period of exhausting attempts to engage the United States, Antigua and Barbuda is now contemplating, once again, approaching the (WTO) Director-General... to join in seeking a mediated solution that would bring much needed relief after these arduous 15 years of damage to our economy.”