Gambling news from http://washingtontimes.com/
Mark Mendel doesn't gamble.
But he took a seeming long shot when he signed on to lead Antigua and Barbuda'sefforts to sue the U.S. over its laws regulating online gambling.
The case pitted one of the World Trade Organization's smallest members -- a tiny Caribbean nation with a population not much bigger than that of the city of Lynchburg, Va. -- against one of the WTO's biggest.
Mr. Mendel, in Washington last week to meet with U.S. trade officials about the case, said the WTO provided the best forum for Antigua to take on one of the globe's economic titans.
"I think I must have thought we would win from the beginning," said Mr. Mendel, a 49-year-old lawyer born in Germany, raised in California and now practicing law from Cork, Ireland.
Mr. Mendel, a stout man with surfer-blond hair, took a personal interest in U.S. gaming laws after a friend was convicted for violating the Wire Wager Act, which prohibits using phone lines for gambling.
A federal court in 2000 ruled that Jay Cohen, president of World Sports Exchange, an online gambling operation based in Antigua, violated the act when his company used the Internet and telephones to transmit calls from bettors in New York to his company in Antigua.
The conviction, upheld by the 2nd Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, was a win for the Justice Department, which maintains that online gambling is illegal, an unregulated temptation for minors and a conduit for money launderers.
It was a blow to Cohen, who was sentenced to 21 months in prison, and a setback for Antigua, a country with almost no natural resources other than its beaches and a warm climate to attract tourists. Antigua had been building its gaming industry to diversify its economy.
Mr. Mendel, who has little background in international trade law, told Antigua it could win its case at the WTO, and he was hired. He helped the country file a WTO case in 2003, arguing that U.S. law discriminated against companies in Antigua that provide a service similar to bricks-and-mortar casinos.
A WTO tribunal in April 2005 decided that portions of the Wire Act, Travel Act and Illegal Gambling Business Act violated international trade rules.
The U.S. says it is complying with WTO rules that allow it to maintain "public morals" and "public order." Antigua says the U.S. is simply stalling rather than changing its laws to comply with the decision. Last month, Antigua moved to bring the U.S. back before a WTO court.
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