WTO to investigate Qatar’s IP allegations against Saudi Arabia
The World Trade Organization (WTO) will investigate Qatar’s allegations of IP breaches by Saudi Arabia, to determine whether the kingdom allegedly failed to stop pirated broadcasts of a Qatar-based broadcaster.
A trade official said yesterday, December 18, that the WTO had agreed “to establish a panel to rule on Saudi Arabia’s alleged failure to provide adequate protection of intellectual property rights”, according to Reuters.
Qatar instigated the proceedings in October, after Qatari company beIN Media Group was prohibited from broadcasting its content (including sports and entertainment programmes) within Saudi Arabia in June 2017.
Following the ban, alleged piracy platform beoutQ started to broadcast beIN’s copyright-protected content in Saudi Arabia. It has previously illegally broadcast World Cup football matches and Holly wood entertainment, according to the allegations.
It is unclear who the platform is owned by or where it is based, but it is believed that the site is based in Saudi Arabia. In July, Saudi Arabia denied allegations that the country is the source of beoutQ.
According to Qatar, Saudi Arabia refused to take effective action to address beoutQ’s alleged IP violations.
Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia sought to block the case from being accepted, arguing that the WTO cannot resolve the dispute due to national security concerns.
Saudi Arabia cited the WTO’s national security clause that exempts a country from the normal adjudication process of disputes between member states if the nation believes its national security may be compromised as a result.
According to Al Jazeera, a Saudi official said the “WTO is not, and cannot be turned into, a venue to resolve national security disputes”. Neither Al Jazeera nor Reuters specified the nature of the concerns.
According to Qatar’s ministry of economy and commerce, Saudi Arabia’s failure to act over beoutQ constitutes a violation of the WTO’s TRIPS Agreement.
Saudi officials say Riyadh is committed to fighting piracy—in June they said the kingdom had confiscated 12,000 piracy devices.
Qatar’s representative to the WTO welcomed the organisation’s decision to hear the case and said that “legal experts have found no basis for using the pretext of national security to cover up crimes of IP rights piracy”.
In a statement, beIN added: “There has been an utterly unprecedented and brazen act of theft of intellectual properties rights over the past 18 months.”
It has affected “rights holders, broadcasters, movie studios and other stakeholders across the world of sports and entertainment—and the responsible parties must be held to account,” the statement said.
Sophie Jordan, executive director of legal affairs and general legal counsel of beIN, said: “Quite simply, this is about the international rule of law—beoutQ has been committing a completely unprecedented and brazen theft of intellectual property over the past 18 months—affecting rights holders, broadcasters, movie studios and other stakeholders across the world of sports and entertainment.
“Those responsible for this Saudi-based pirate operation must be held to account. No one can be above the law.”
Jordan also said that separate to the WTO case, the media group is filing investment arbitration proceedings against Saudi Arabia in relation to beoutQ, a move which she said is “the only known investment arbitration ever to be brought in connection with state-supported illegal broadcast piracy”.
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