Casino City VS Department of Justice: Round 2

Published: Friday, July 29, 2005 Online-Casinos.com

CASINO CITY VS DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE : ROUND 2

The feds respond

Casino City's challenge to the U.S. Department of Justice entered the next phase this week as the latter responded to Casino Citys appeal against a district court decision preventing it from being heard.

Casino City had earlier challenged the activities of the DoJ, which had been advising US media that accepting advertising from online gambling companies was illegal. There have been no prosecutions, but this resulted in significant losses as media and search engines backed away from such a risk and denied advertising space.

Legal representatives for Casino City used the freedom of speech provisions of the US Constitution in arguments before a district court, asking for a declaratory judgement. The company lost this first round when the court found in favour of the federal authorities, who claimed that because it had not been one of those companies directly addressed with a warning, CC had no standing to contest the issue.

Casino City then appealed to a higher court, and this week the DoJ filed its response, using the same grounds and seeking to have the appeal dismissed by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

As we went to press, Casino City remained determined to press its case, and was preparing a riposte to the DoJ brief.