ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 29, 1996 TAG: 9610290084
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LUXEMBOURG
Americans who sue European companies doing business in Cuba face countersuits in European courts, after the European Union voted Monday to retaliate against a U.S. law it deems unfair.
The measure lets Europeans countersue to recoup damages assessed in U.S. courts under the Helms-Burton Act.
The new law also strikes back at U.S. legislation allowing Washington to slap trade sanctions on foreign companies investing in the oil sectors in Libya and Iran.
``Equipped with this weapon of self-defense, we will be much better able to get a genuine negotiation from a fair and balanced position,'' said EU Foreign Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said it was inappropriate for the Europeans to retaliate. He said the Clinton administration wished that the Europeans instead focused on the plight of the ``many, many people in Cuba whose rights are being denied now by the [Fidel] Castro government.''
Signed by President Clinton in March, the Helms-Burton Act allows U.S. companies to sue foreign businesses that use property taken from American businesses after Cuba's 1959 revolution. It also bans executives of such companies from entering the United States.
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 35 linesby CNB