Antigua eyes big win against US in gambling case

---

WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (Reuters): Antigua and Barbuda expects to receive a big damage award from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in a long-running Internet gambling dispute with the United States, a lawyer for the Caribbean nation said yesterday.
"We feel pretty confident about our case, to be honest. We really feel like we have the upper hand here," Mark Mendel, a private attorney representing Antigua, told the reporter ahead of an expected ruling by a WTO arbitration panel Friday.
In an April 2005 ruling, the WTO found a US law allowing only domestic companies to provide online horse-race gambling services discriminated against foreign companies.
The United States has argued Antigua is entitled to only $500,000 in compensation because of that ban.
But Antigua-which built an online gambling industry to replace declining tourist revenues-has asked permission to impose $3.44 billion a year worth of "cross-retaliation" on the United States.