Reuters reports that the panel in the US - Gambling Article 21.5 dispute has issued its interim report, finding that the United States did not comply with the original rulings:
The United States has suffered a new setback in a four-year-old legal battle with Antigua and Barbuda over U.S. restrictions on Internet gambling, a U.S. trade official said on Thursday.
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Gretchen Hamel, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative's office, confirmed press reports that a WTO panel "did not agree with the United States that we had taken the necessary steps to comply" with that ruling.
At the same time, Hamel downplayed the decision contained in a preliminary, confidential report to the two parties.
"The panel's findings issued today involve a narrow issue of federal law" and the United States will have opportunity to submit comments to the WTO before it issues its final, public report in March, Hamel said.
"Nothing in the panel's interim report undermines the broad, favorable results that the United States obtained from the WTO in April 2005," she said.
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The United States will decide after the final panel decision ruling in March whether to appeal.
The Bush administration may not have to ask Congress to pass new legislation in any case, Hamel said.
"The panel report clarifies that compliance does not necessarily require new legislation, but could instead involve other steps, such as administrative or judicial action," she said.
