GENEVA (Reuters) – A World Trade Organization panel ruled in favour of Qatar on Tuesday in a dispute with Saudi Arabia over intellectual property rights in which Doha alleged that Riyadh blocked its broadcaster after the Gulf neighbours fell out in 2017.
Qatar filed its complaint in 2018, saying Saudi Arabia was blocking Qatari-owned broadcaster beIN and refusing to take effective action against alleged piracy of beIN’s content by “beoutQ”, a sophisticated pirating operation.
The three-person panel ruled that Saudi Arabia’s failure to act against beoutQ was a breach of WTO rules.
(Reporting by Emma Farge and Philip Blenkinsop)
