EU Urges US to Give Up ‘Illegal’ Online Gambling Ban
Jun 11th, 2009 by admin
The European Union wants the U.S. to reconsider its laws against online gambling. The EU says the U.S. restrictions violate international trade law and hurt European businesses that host Web gambling. However, Europe has so far refrained from taking legal action, hoping to win the favor of the Obama administration when it comes to larger issues in international trade.
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The European Union urged the United States on Wednesday to open talks on scrapping a ban on foreign online gambling companies, saying it breaks global trade rules.
The EU says it could seek compensation through the World Trade Organization because the 2006 ban unfairly prevents foreign Internet gambling sites from operating in the United States.
However, it said it would hold off launching legal action until it had the chance to negotiate a solution with President Barack Obama’s administration — another sign of a thaw in EU-U.S. relations since President George W. Bush left office.
The European Commission said the U.S. ban shut out gambling sites such as Britain’s PartyGaming and Sportingbet from the lucrative US$4 billion U.S. market, causing companies to lose revenue and stock market value.
About half the world’s online gamblers are based in the U.S.
Gambling companies claim the ban lost them up to $100 billion and have urged the EU to seek that amount of compensation in trade concessions under WTO rules.
They say it was unfair that European companies could not operate in the United States while U.S. companies like Las Vegas Sands were free to offer Internet games to Europeans. Sands spokesperson Ron Reese said Wednesday, however, that the casino company doesn’t offer any Internet gambling at all, and doing so would violate U.S. law.
The EU said it could still sue the U.S. for breaking WTO rules, even though Washington wants to pull out of international commitments to open up its gambling and betting market.
However, EU officials want to avoid provoking the U.S. because they are hopeful that Obama will join a renewed push to strike a new WTO deal that would open up world trade, currently in free fall as recession in rich nations slashes demand for imported goods.
The EU and U.S. recently agreed to end a long-running row on hormone-treated beef that was aggravated by a U.S. move to add trade charges to a long list of European products — from French Roquefort cheese to chewing gum — days before Bush left office.
Obama also has sought to assure the EU and Canada that “Buy America” provisions in the U.S. economic stimulus package would not spark a trade war by favoring U.S. steel, iron and manufactured goods for government projects over foreign suppliers.
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