Gambling in the BVI is illegal. Part 2

Many Internet businessmen are looking for the right jurisdiction to incorporate and run online gambling business. The British Virgin Islands would not be a right jurisdiction for establishing offshore gambling business like online lotteries, casinos, etc. In Caribbean region, it would be better to look at Costa Rica or, maybe, turn round the Globe and look at the Channel Islands.

There are many questions that one should answer before setting up a complete online gambling site or casino. Most of these questions are related to an existent spot on the map even if gambling occurs through the Internet. They are about incorporation country, country issuing the gambling license, place(s) where servers are actually held, Bank account(s), Merchant account(s), etc.

Of course, a British Virgin Islands business company can be wisely used in online gambling business structure. There are a lot of BVI companies more or less directly related to online casinos as well as brick and mortar casinos all over the world. However, if we are speaking about gambling things, the British Virgin Islands wouldn’t be the first word to come in mind. More important thing to memorize is the following: if you have arrived in the British Virgin Islands, do remember that gambling is illegal there.

Brian Obvi,
Offshore Analyst

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Gambling in the BVI is illegal. Part 1

The Commissioner of Police, Mr. Frazer informed those who might be unaware of this that gambling and selling and purchasing of lottery tickets is an offence in the British Virgin Islands.

Frazer admits that gambling and selling of lottery tickets is often taken as a norm in the BVI, and therefore he advised on this matter to warn people committing this offence, however, if persons continue the practice, they will inevitably be arrested. So, this was to inform the public on the laws that exist.

Section 301 of the Criminal Code states the following:

- Any person who knowingly permits, or is concerned in, the use of any building or place for the purpose of gambling, betting or the holding of a lottery or sweepstake, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year or to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or both.

- Police may be authorized by day or night to enter such house or place (suspected of committing the offence of gambling) and to search the same and any persons found therein, and to seize all instruments and appliances of gambling, betting, or required for the holding of a lottery or sweepstake, and all money, securities for money and other articles reasonably supposed to have been used or intended to be used for any such purpose.

Brian Obvi,
Offshore Analyst

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Large farms benefit from direct aid

880 large farms or agri-businesses each received over €500,000 in the final year of the old pre-Single Farm Payment CAP regime according to draft Commission figures. This means that just 0.02 per cent of beneficiaries received 2.5 per cent of the total EU budget for direct aids (€700m out of €28.2 billion).

Germany once again had the largest number of farms receiving payments of over €0.5 million each, 620 farmers who received €0.5 billion between them. This is a reflection of the survival of large farms in the former East Germany.

However, France has its large farms as well. France was the largest overall recipient of direct aid in 2004, €6.9 billion, and of this €1.7 million was shared out between fewer than ten of the biggest farms.

Well over half the farms received CAP aid in 2004, just over 2.5 million, received annual aid cheques of less than €1250. Of these farms, 2.1 million were situated in either Italy, Greece or Spain. There has been speculation that these very small payments could be phased out because of the transaction costs involved in calculating and paying them. However, even very small sums can be important to marginal enterprises, e.g., where the farmer is past retirement age.Any source

Canadian request reverted to the next WTO meeting

The Caribbean-Canada Trade Agreement or Caribbean Initiative known as CARIBCAN is a Canadian government program that was established by the Parliament of Canada in 1986 to promote trade and investment and provide industrial cooperation through the duty-free goods from the countries of the Commonwealth-Caribbean to the Canadian market.

It aims at enhancing the Commonwealth Caribbean’s existing trade and export earnings, improving the trade and economic development prospects of the region, promoting new investment opportunities as well as encouraging enhanced economic integration and cooperation within the region.

As far as Caribbean Initiative expires at the end of the year, Canada intends to extend it.
At a recent meeting of the Council for Trade in Goods of World Trade Organization (WTO), Canada requested a 5-year extension of the waiver for its CARIBCAN. This program enables Canada to grant duty-free treatment to imports from the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Bahamas, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The Council for Trade in Goods of WTO is going to revert to Canadian request at its next meeting.

Both Canada and the BVI and other countries wait for the extension of the agreement as far as it enables the countries improve and develop their economies.

Brian Obvi,
Offshore Analyst

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'Yo liars' claim as Doha blame game gets under way

Rookie US Trade Representative Susan Schawb has effectively accused the EU of lying as the blame game for the collapse of the Doha Round gets under way. The US has been taking a lot of the heat and no doubt the search for someone to blame makes the participants in the failed talks feel better but it does little for the future growth of the world economy or fairer trade.

Ms Schwab said that the US had so far 'refrained from responding to the finger-pointing by some' but she said the EU's claim that the US had doomed the talks by failing to show flexibility in negotiations was 'false and misleading' and made with the intention of 'attempting to divert blame for the stalemate.'

Attention is now focusing on the US farm bill due to expire next year which has provided considerable aid to large-scale farmers. Three-quarters of the subsidies have gone to growers of rice, corn, wheat, soyabeans and cotton. One idea that is being floated around Congress is to extend for one year both the current spending arrangements under the farm bill and fast-track authority.

The EU is certainly not blameless in all this as its stance was weakened by the rebellion of agrarian states led by France, leading to a relatively weak, if cleverly presented, tariff cutting offer. Emerging countries like India have also been running scared of the electoral damage that can be done by their poorer farmers.

As Susan Sechler, US director for trade and development at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (a think tank) commented, 'It used to be that first you got a deal at the WTO and then used it to discipline domestic agricultural spending. That doesn't work any more, partly because developing countries in the WTO won't accept a post-dated cheque.'

At the heart of all this is the changing economic structure of power in the world. Relations between the EU and the US have become increasingly tense over a range of issues, not just economic ones. But even if they wanted to function as a duopoly resolving their own disputes at the expense of others, they couldn't do so because too much influence has passed to the emerging countries. That is why the G7/8 is largely an irrelevance and we need a G4 of the US, EU, China and Japan, with some involvement from medium-sized powers like Brazil.Any source

EMI SETTLES PAYOLA DISPUTE WITH NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer office had investigated and found that EMI (which includes Virgin Records and Capitol Records), had illegally provided financial benefits to obtain airplay by giving radio station employees concert tickets, hotel and airfare and other benefits. EMI had allegedly used independent promoters to make the payments which benefited such artists as the Rolling Stones, Coldplay and Norah Jones.

As part of the settlement, EMI agreed to end its practice of paying radio stations or their employees for airplay. It also agreed to stop using independent promoters for this purpose. Moreover, the company agreed to hire a compliance officer to monitor the company’s promotion practices, and agreed to pay $3.75 million to New York State not-for-profit entities to fund music education and appreciation programs.

The Attorney General’s investigation of payola in the music industry resulted in earlier settlements with Sony BMG, Warner and Universal.
The settlement agreement is available on the Internet http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2006/jun/EMI%20Settlement.pdf.

FIDO TO PREMIERE AT TORONTO

Congratulations to our clients Blake Corbett and Mary Anne Waterhouse whose film “Fido” will premiere at this fall’s Toronto International Film Festival. The feature will be the opening film of Canada First! Section. This zombie dog movie is about a six-foot tall zombie named Fido who eats the next-door neighbor. It is a boy-and-his-dog movie for grown ups, "FIDO" will rip your heart out. The film will be distributed by Lion’s Gate.Any source

Doha Round suspended

Given that the G8 summit failed to make any substantive progress on the Doha Round, it is no surprise that its attempts to kick start the Round have failed. Negotiators were going to given up their holidays to meet a new August target date, but Pascal Lamy has just announced that the round has been suspended. He commented that some countries clearly preferred a 'Doha Light'. Certainly there are many in the United States who think that the country's interests can best be served by bilateral deals.

The suspension followed a failure to make progress in Group of Six meetings on Sunday. Four of the six G6 participants blamed the US for the collapse of the talks. EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson commented, 'If the US continues to demand dollar-for-dollar compensation for reducing domestic support, no one in the developing world will ever buy that, and the EU will not either.'

For its part the US has become increasingly frustrated by what it sees as the gutting of its proposals to cut farm tariffs which generated opposition from the EU, Japan and Switzerland. Susan Schwab, US trade representative, complained that some participants were more interested in loopholes than in market access.

The Uruguay Round was, of course, suspended in 1990 after the supposedly final talks in Brussels collapsed and was eventually revived. However, the political climate is not favourable. Mid-term elections are looming in the United States which seem to have affected President Bush's thinking. If the Democrats take either the House or the Senate, a renewal of authority to negotiate trade deals is even less likely.

The collapse of the talks is good news for heavily subsidised large-scale farmers in the US and the EU. Trade negotiations have been the most successful driver of CAP reform. Politicians in poor countries will get political points for protecting poor farmers against competitive imports. But it's bad news for agricultural exporting countries such as Australia and Brazil. And despite the celebratory noises emanating from some NGOs who argue that no deal is better than a bad deal this is not good news for farmers in least developed countries, for example cotton producers in West Africa who have been hit hard by US subsidies.

What of the WTO itself? The suspension of the Round does not mean the end of the Disputes Settlement Mechanism. Former EU commissioner and WTO head Sir Peter Sutherland commented, 'The WTO is so crucial, it will survive, but it will be damaged. The collapse of the talks leave global multilateralism in a parlous state.'

The WTO is regarded by many of its members as the last multilateral organisation by whose decisions the US agrees to be bound. In truth this is another victory for US unilateralism and any bilateral deals that are forged in the future will benefit the US more than the other participant. As Michael Cox of LSE warned in the March issue of European Political Science, the bridge across the Atlantic can no longer bear any heavy traffic and there is a widening gulf on issues and values between the EU and the United States. As an Atlanticist, this is something I regret, but it is difficult to see what remedies there are to hand.Any source