WTO rules against Saudi Araia in Qatar TV spat

GENEVA: A World Trade Organization panel ruled Tuesday that Riyadh failed to protect intellectual property rights of Qatari-owned broadcaster beIN by refusing to take action against a Saudi pirate TV outfit.

The WTO established the panel in December 2018 to settle the dispute between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which has been locked in a bitter feud with its Gulf neighbours after the severing of diplomatic ties a year earlier. Saudi Arabia, along with the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, abruptly cut diplomatic, economic and travel ties with Qatar in June 2017, insisting it was too close to Iran and funding radical Islamist movements. Qatar fiercely rejected those allegations and refused to budge on 13 demands made by its allies-turned-adversaries, including closure of the Doha-based Al Jazeera news network and shutting a Turkish military base in the emirate. In Tuesday’s case, Qatar had accused Saudi Arabia of blocking Qatari-owned broadcaster beIN and not taking proper action against the theft of its content by a Saudi-based piracy outlet called “beoutQ”. The WTO panel found that Saudi Arabia had not provided for domestic criminal procedures and penalties to be applied to beoutQ, and that Riyadh prevented beIN from obtaining Saudi legal counsel to enforce its IP rights through the Saudi judicial system. It also largely rejected Saudi Arabia’s assertion that national security concerns justified its economic actions against Doha — marking just the second time in history WTO experts have taken a stand on a country’s national security claims.