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UB/ AP Bankruptcy?

wagon30
wagon30
May 16, 2011
12:19pm
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Quote
Originally posted by: mghenry

I'd even go further and argue that in all states other than UT and HI state laws against any kind of online gambling are themselves illegal restraints of free trade and in violation of US treaty law. On this I am supported by the World Trade Court and, well, the US Constitution (Federal laws > state laws FTW).

Maybe I only have one brain cell left, but I assure you it is quite edumacated.


I have a friend that took a class on WTO in law school, that I asked about this. He said that the WTO treaties are treated differently than our traditional consular treaties. Basically, your argument would be true in the latter case, but not in the former case. So even though a World Trade Court decided we broke our agreement and awarded Antigua countervailing duties, it doesn't have any affect on the law in this country.
tss777
tss777
May 16, 2011
3:24pm
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Quote
Originally posted by: wagon30
So even though a World Trade Court decided we broke our agreement and awarded Antigua countervailing duties, it doesn't have any affect on the law in this country.


That depends on your interpretation of affect. If an Antiguan company started cranking out copies of software for $5, DVD's for $2, CD's for $1, Online books for $0.25, etc. and selling them around the world - which would be legal for them to do based on rulings handed down by the WTO (according to what I've read on the topic anyway), you better believe Microsoft, Warner Bros, Random House, etc. would be all over the US gubernment and the congressmen they have purchased to get the laws changed damn quick in order for the WTO to change their ruling.

tss777
tss777
May 16, 2011
3:44pm
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Here's some information on the ruling. The big downside is they are limited to $21 million dollars in rights. Still they could probably do some damage, especially if they targetted only one US company for maximum effect on a bottom line...

WTO ruling

Thus far, Antigua has not taken advantage, but with their second biggest industry about to go under and a good deal of outrage in their country, maybe they will try.
wagon30
wagon30
May 17, 2011
7:35am
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Well, by affect, I was referring to mghenry's post. It is true that when in conflict an international treaty usually wins over a state law, but it's not the case with our WTO agreements. The President and Congress have wide discretion in deciding how to meet our obligations to the WTO.

I wasn't talking about the pressure Antigua could put on us by starting a trade war, but my initial reaction is not very much. I imagine Antigua has a lot more to lose than we do as our trade with them is a much higher percent of their economy than their trade is with ours. Even if the ruling went up 10 times, it's not a significant amount of money compared to our economy or our international trade. Congress would be leaving much, much more on the table, if they chose not to legalize internet gambling in this country. I just don't see our trade relationship with Antigua mattering very much.

Also, while I understand your main argument, I don't think your examples are very good. The intellectual property protection of software and digital media is not very good already. You can download software, songs and movies for free in any country in the world. In most developing countries, you can already buy dvds and cds for $2. If Antigua wanted to start a trade war, I think they'd probably do it with pharmaceuticals. The U.S. has taken great pains to enforce intellectual property over drugs (with some success) and the lobby groups over pharmaceuticals are much stronger. Still, by how many times do the U.N. damages have to increase, before congress takes note. I'm not sure, how to even ballpark it, but my hunch is a whole lot.

There are lots of big players in this national debate, and I think the chance of fully operational U.S. internet poker over the near term (less than 2 years) is pretty high (greater than 70%), but I just don't see Antigua as mattering much at all.

tss777
tss777
May 17, 2011
10:22am
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I don't enough about that kind of stuff to have an intelligent opinion other than to state if Antigua were to use this ruling, I believe their tactic would not be to disrupt the american economy. Instead, they would try to disrupt a select one or few american companies. Then let the company take their argument to congress.

I do agree that poker will be back in the U.S. As a matter of fact, I believe the whole reason for this attack was to take out the big players (notice they only went after the guys with the biggest player base) in order to eradicate the player base thus allowing the campaign contributors such as Seizures Entertainment and MGM to take the lion share of the business (Get it? MGM... Lion.) when online poker is made more legal.
Cat_Luvs_Golf
Cat_Luvs_Golf
May 18, 2011
7:01am
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Quote
Originally posted by: tss777
Here's the article on the thief we let go free to go after the poker sites instead. http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scandal-2011-4
So we let legitimate thieves go free to prey upon people who were at worst operating in the grey area of the law.


Interesting article. Greedy little bastard couldn't live on $150K per day ($39 mill per year by my calcs), PO's the sites, and then rolled on them, in part. As the article aptly points out, "no honor among thieves (crooks, illegal funds transferers, etc).