Associated British Foods is to announce a plan this week to use part of its sugar production as an environmentally friendly additive to petrol. They are set to demand exemption from the bill.A spokesman for PartyGaming said: “There seems to be no combination of exemptions that would be acceptable to all those who have an interest in this bill. PartyGaming does not believe the current proposals will gain sufficient support to be enacted.”This is the eighth attempt by Senator Kyl to attack the online gaming industry in the US. Previous proposals have struggled to achieve political agreement.The attack on banks follows attempts by the US Justice Department, which has already been pressuring institutions such as the Bank of America, Chase and American Express to stop handling internet betting transactions. The department has also issued threats to advertisers and media groups which have carried online gambling promotions.News of the fresh assault on internet gambling comes as PartyGaming gears up to begin attracting potential investors. It is due to publish its listing prospectus later this week and investors will be scouring the document to assess the legal risks to the business.The company maintains that online poker is not illegal in the US, only online sports betting.. They believe some more junior Bank officials, who voiced criticisms about the supervision of BCCI in the 1980s, are crucial to the case.

The Bank says it is keeping an open mind on whether to call further witnesses. It could call 24 – the 21 Bank officials still alive as well as the three former governors: Sir Edward George, Lord Kingsdown (formerly Robin Leigh-Pemberton) and Lord Richardson.The Bank’s legal bill will run to £100m next year, while the liquidators estimate their costs to be half that figure. So far, the liquidators have managed to recover 75p in the pound for creditors. Stan Monaghan, who was on Bury council and sits on the creditors’ committee co-ordinating claims, said the council only invested in BCCI because the Bank put it on its list of recommended financial institutions “What we’re trying to get is justice,” he said.. It will be challenged by the equally powerful US horseracing industry, the Native Americans whose reservations are home to several gambling centres, and by state lotteries, which sell billions of dollars’ worth of tickets online. The WTO said the US must ban all forms of internet betting or open up its doors to foreign gaming groups.However, competing interests in the US gambling industry may scupper the bill.

United States senators are preparing to launch a new attack on online gambling in a move that threatens to damage PartyGaming, the online poker company planning a £5.5bn float in London this month. Mr Stadlen has said that only one successful case of misfeasance has been reported in 300 years.Cross-examination of Mr Quinn and Mr Cooke is expected to take until the end of January, when the liquidators will go straight to the Court of Appeal if their request to quiz more witnesses is not granted. Lovells, the law firm advising BCCI’s liquidators, estimates that it will take at least three months to cross-examine each witness.Christopher Grierson, a partner at Lovells, said: “We’re really at the heart of the case now. However much you present the case on the documents, the full story only emerges when you get the people who were actually involved at the time stepping into the box to explain what actually went on.”Gordon Pollock, the QC acting for the liquidators, set a new record last year when he took 80 days to present the creditors’ case in the £850m compensation claim against the Bank.But his record was then broken by the opening statement from Nicholas Stadlen, the Bank’s barrister, who outlined the Bank’s defence for 119 days and ended the longest speech in legal history on 25 May. The insurer has spent the past two years trying to turn around its performance following record losses.