Supreme Court Hears First Ever Antidumping Cases
In these cases, the U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned a decision by the Commerce Department that contracts for the enrichment of uranium between U.S. buyers and Eurodif, an enricher in France, were contracts for the sale of goods and subject to the antidumping petition. The courts held that the contracts were contracts for services and not subject to the antidumping duty laws.
In hearing this case, the Supreme Court will likely consider the extent to which courts must give deference to administrative agencies, such as the Commerce Department, under the test established in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984).
The Court is expected to issue its opinion in these cases in Spring of 2009.
WTO Reports Drop in Antidumping Investigations
Specifically, the Secretariat reported:
The Member reporting the highest number of new initiations during January-June 2007 was India, with 13, followed by New Zealand (6). Ranked next were Korea (5); Brazil, China and Japan (4 each); Argentina and South Africa (3 each); Mexico and the United States (2 each); and Chile, Colombia and Egypt (1 each). These figures represented declines for Argentina, Egypt, India, and Mexico compared with the first half of 2006, and increases for Brazil, Chile, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States. In addition, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, the European Communities, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Peru, Chinese Taipei, and Turkey, each of which reported new initiations for the first half of 2006, reported no new initiations for the first half of 2007.
China remained the most frequent subject of the new investigations, with 16 initiations directed at its exports during January-June 2007, down sharply from the 31 new investigations on exports from China that were reported for the corresponding period of 2006. Chinese Taipei, the European Communities (including individual member States) and Korea were the second most frequent subjects, with four initiations of new investigations each directed at their exports during the first half of 2007, compared with seven, four and five, respectively, during the first half of 2006. India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and the United States were tied for third place, with two initiations each in respect of their exports, compared with three, two, five, five and seven initiations, respectively, during January-June 2006. Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong China, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, and Uruguay, were the subject of one initiation each during the January-June 2007 period.
The products that were most frequently subject to the reported new investigations during the first half of 2007 were in the chemicals sector (24 initiations), followed by pulp and paper (9 initiations) and plastics (6 initiations). Of the 24 reported initiations in respect of chemicals products, India reported 10, China and Japan each reported four, the United States reported two, and Argentina, Brazil, Korea, and South Africa each reported one.