WT/DSB/COM/9  
 
16 June 2020  
(20-4247) Page: 1/2 
  Original: English  
 
SAUDI ARABIA – MEASU RES CONCERNING THE P ROTECTION OF INTELLE CTUAL 
PROPERTY RIGHTS  
COMMUNICATION FROM THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI  ARABIA  
The following communication, dated 2 June 2020 , was received from the delegation of the 
Kingdom  of Saudi Arabia  with the request that it be circulated to the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB).  
 
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Systemic Issue of the Lack of Remedy to the Breach of Confidentiality  
in WTO Dispute Settlemen t Proceedings  
 
 
In the final stage of the WTO dispute Saudi Arabia – Measures Concerning the Protection of 
Intellectual Property Rights  (DS567), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia suffered a violation of WTO rules 
to which the Panel has refused to remedy.  Given the systemic nature of this violation and of the 
dispute generally, Saudi Arabia feels responsible to bring this violation to the attention of WTO 
Members through the Dispute Settlement Body.  
 
In short, in violation of the WTO Understanding on Rules and Pr ocedures Governing the Settlement 
of Disputes, the Working Procedures of the Panel, and explicit instructions of the Panel, confidential 
information regarding the uncirculated Panel Report was disclosed and published, causing grave 
prejudice to the interes ts of Saudi Arabia.  The published information falsely represented the findings 
of the Panel, but Saudi Arabia is unable to rebut the false narrative without disclosing the actual 
findings of the Panel, which would violate applicable WTO rules.  The Panel re fused to provide a 
limited exception from the confidentiality rules to allow Saudi Arabia to correct publicly the malicious 
misrepresentation of the Panel 's findings.  Although the truth will come out with the expected 
circulation of the Panel Report on 16 June 2020, the damage has been done.  
 
1. Background  
 
This dispute arose in a national security context following the severance of diplomatic and consular 
relations with Qatar by Saudi Arabia and several other WTO Members in response to the Qatar 's 
continuing support for terrorism and extremism.  The detailed information that was provided to the 
Panel on this central issue is set out in the attached Executive Summary of Saudi Arabia.  This 
submission establishes the factual basis regarding the emergenc y in international relations based on 
which Saudi Arabia invoked the Security Exception  under Article 73 of the TRIPS Agreement in this 
dispute.  
 
As repeatedly stated by Saudi Arabia in the context of this national security dispute, Qatar is abusing 
the WT O dispute process by fabricating facts and raising baseless claims with the singular intent of 
maliciously damaging the reputation of Saudi Arabia while cloaking the "real dispute " about its 
support for terror and extremism in a public relations effort, wh ich has now culminated with the 
publication of its false narrative.  Throughout the dispute, Saudi Arabia has refused to engage directly 
with Qatar or respond to its argument in order to protect Saudi Arabia 's essential security interests 
in light of the pr evailing emergency in international relations.  Although this approach severely limited 
Saudi Arabia 's ability to defend against Qatar 's false claims, Saudi Arabia remains unwilling to 
compromise its national security interests by engaging with such a count ry in the absence of 
diplomatic and consular relations.  WT/DSB/COM/9  
 
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2. The Disclosure of Confidential Information  
 
Confidential information included in the Report of the Panel was disclosed to The Guardian newspaper 
in the United Kingdom, which published the confidenti al information in an article on 26 May 2020.  
The information reported in the article directly contradicts and grossly distorts the Panel 's findings 
in a manner that advances the similarly distorted publicity campaign pursued by Qatar in the WTO 
dispute.  For example, The Guardian article 's references to the Panel Report include the statement 
that "the independent ruling firmly establishes that the Saudi government is behind beoutQ. " Saudi 
Arabia has maintained throughout the dispute that the Saudi government  is in no way behind the 
copyright piracy alleged in this dispute.  Although the truth will come out in public when the Panel 
Report is released for circulation on 16 June, at that point it will be too late to remedy the negative 
effect that such false info rmation has already had on our national interests.  
 
Saudi Arabia observes that the failure to respect WTO rules here is consistent with Qatar 's general 
disrespect for international treaties, including its repudiation of the "Riyadh Agreements " to oppose 
terrorism and extremism, as described in the attached Executive Summary.  
 
The source of the disclosure of the confidential information in this case is not difficult to identify 
under the prevailing circumstances.  Based on the official record, the only four parties had access to 
the confidential information at issue: the WTO Secretariat, Saudi Arabia, the complaining party, and 
beIN, a company owned and controlled by Qatar that attended the proceedings in the disput e on its 
delegation.  Saudi Arabia has confirmed to the Panel that the breach of confidentiality did not occur 
on the side of Saudi Arabia.  Obviously, Saudi Arabia would not provide to The Guardian false 
information that would harm its national interests.  If the breach did not originate within the WTO 
Secretariat, then the origin of the breach may be ascertained through the process of elimination.  In 
this regard, a news article published on 22 April 2020 in the Financial Times documented beIN 's 
interest in p lanting a false narrative based on the WTO Panel Report that confirms "Qatar 's beIN 
demands Premier League blocks Saudi takeover of Newcastle ".  
 
In any case, the outcome of this matter is that Saudi Arabia suffered a violation of WTO rules, to 
which no re medy was made available.  
 
3. Systemic Issues Arising from the Breach of Confidentiality  
 
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is adamant that no WTO Member should bear the burden of harm to 
its legal, economic and reputational interests inflicted by a breach of WTO co nfidentiality rules, 
especially where the Member clearly had no role in the breach of confidentiality, and no harm would 
be caused by publicly correcting key facts.  
 
Saudi Arabia considers that in such cases panels should exercise their power over the proc eedings 
to allow the injured party to correct the false narrative created by a targeted leak of confidential 
information in a panel report.  Unless such violations are corrected immediately, the news cycle will 
move on and the false impressions created by t he leak will remain in the public consciousness and 
will continue to cause injury.  
 
The failure to correct such a matter irrevocably prejudices the Member 's legal rights, and send a 
systemic signal that no remedy exists to the prejudicial breach of binding confidentiality provisions 
of the WTO Agreements by the WTO Secretariat or by a party to a WTO dispute, including in disputes 
centered on national securit y. Saudi Arabia strongly believes that this interpretation and outcome is 
not acceptable to WTO Members.  
 
Based on the situation described above, in addition to the lack of a remedy to the violation suffered 
by Saudi Arabia, our concern about the integrity  of the WTO dispute settlement system leads Saud 
Arabia to request that the DSB seize itself of the issue of breaches in confidentiality in WTO disputes 
and work to identify balanced solutions under which affected Members may respond to violations to 
prote ct their national interests, and where panels action discourages such violations in order 
preserve Members ' WTO rights.  
 
 
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