“The bill introduction should happen in the next month,” a spokesman for House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said.

On Thursday, Reuters reported the EU could file a complaint about U.S. enforcement of the gambling ban at the World Trade Organization.

“Mr. Frank will bring back legislation to repeal the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act),” the spokesman said, referring to a Republican-crafted bill passed in 2006 when the party controlled Congress and the White House.

Supporters of the ban argued offshore Internet gambling websites take billions of dollars out the U.S. economy, damage families and serve as vehicles for money laundering.

The law cost Europe’s online gambling companies billions in lost market value as they were forced to retreat from one of their most lucrative markets. It barred businesses from knowingly accepting payments in connection with unlawful Internet gambling, including payments made through credit cards, electronic fund transfers and checks.

Against Frank’s advice, the Bush administration finalized regulations late last year to implement the ban and gave companies until December 1 to comply.

Frank said the rules would burden the financial service industry at a time of economic crisis.

Many publicly traded European companies, including PartyGaming and 888.com, withdrew from the United States after Congress passed the ban, but they face possible criminal prosecution for activities before then.

Anurag Dikshit, a founder of PartyGaming, pleaded guilty in December to Internet gambling charges and agreed to pay $300 million in fines. He still faces possible jail time under a deferred sentencing arrangement. Other PartyGaming founders have not settled with the U.S. Justice Department.

EU industry officials said the pressure on Dikshit to make a deal showed the Justice Department had crossed a major line in its prosecution of cases.

The European Commission, acting on industry petition, began a formal investigation in March into whether Washington was singling out EU companies for enforcement actions while allowing U.S. online firms to operate freely.

Sources familiar with that investigation told Reuters in Brussels on Thursday they expect the investigators’ report, initially due last year, to recommend action at the WTO when it is released next month.

Rather than move immediately to litigation, EU officials would use the report as leverage to seek a negotiated solution with the United States, they said.

“The U.S. has the right to address legitimate public policy concerns relating to Internet gambling, but discrimination against EU companies cannot be part of the policy mix,” said EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.

European companies claim a U.S. ban that forced them out of the lucrative American market discriminates against them in violation of WTO rules, while permitting domestic gambling companies, particularly those offering betting on horse races, to flourish.

This case is reminiscent of last years WTO case where Antigua and Barbuda took US to WTO court. The case become an embarrassment to Washington. Never had such a tiny nation brought a WTO complaint against the United States, which is one reason the dispute has implications well beyond the issue of gambling.In the Antigua case, and we can assume in the EU case as well, the companies complained that, before that ban, they had the right to operate under international trade laws, and that therefore the U.S. gambling ban U.S. violate WTO rules. In the end the WTO awarded Antigua and Barbuda the right to impose $21 million a year in sanctions on the United States in retaliation for the restrictions on online betting.

The Remote Gambling Association, which represents several European gambling companies, says the U.S. action is hurting their revenues and stock value as well as making them run the risk of substantial fines. It welcomed the EU’s decision to act on its complaint.

The U.S. underscored its battle against the industry when it arrested two British Internet gambling executives who were travelling through the United States in 2006.

The 2006 WTO ruling found the U.S. had the right to prevent offshore betting as a means of protecting public order and public morals. But it said Washington was breaking trade law by targeting online gambling without equal application of the rules to American operators offering remote betting on horse and dog racing.