Remote Gaming Association Predicts Online Casino Issue Continues
Even as European Union representatives are in Washington to investigate U.S. policies regarding online casinos, the Remote Gaming Association, filers of the complaint against the U.S. on behalf of European Internet gambling sites, has predicted the dispute will continue to the World Trade Organization.
If the European Commission determines American policy is protectionist or features selective prosecutions, a conclusion that seems inevitable, the next step would involve litigation through the WTO. A legal action before the governing body of world trade could result in serious and costly penalties levied against the U.S., as well as having a negative effect on U.S. trade negotiations everywhere.
The report of the EU investigative team will not be made public until November, but one member of the delegation, speaking anonymously, said he expects the Commission to file for permission to impose sanctions by the end of 2008.
Lode Van den Hende, a member of the RGA's legal team, told Reuters, "It looks very much as if this matter will ... be sent to the WTO at the end of the commission's investigation."
Robert Wexler, the Democratic chair of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs subcommittee, decried the casual response of U.S. trade diplomats, saying, "I am increasingly concerned that if these disputes are not able to be resolved, it will likely mean costly retaliatory measures will be taken against U.S. economic interests."
Pressure continues to mount at every angle upon the UIGEA and its restraint of legitimate Internet gambling sites. Financial companies groan under the misplaced obligation to determine legitimacy, international negotiators must defend a hypocritical and illegal policy, American consumers and children remain unprotected, and personal freedom continues to be curtailed. If voters remember to let Congressmen know regularly their feelings about individual liberty, the sheer weight of its own inefficiency and dysfunction must drag the UIGEA down.
