Dear International Trade and Investment Committee Members,
Here are the international trade and investment articles and publications of interest for the week of December 15 to December 21. Golsa Ghamari has curated this week’s edition. Golsa is a member of the International Trade and Investment Committee. She works for various senior practitioners in Ottawa and Toronto in the areas of civil litigation and international trade. Should you wish to help the Newsletter sub-committee by curating an edition or provide any feedback, please send a note to Andrew Lanouette, the Co-Chair of the International Trade and Investment Committee at alanouette@cassidylevy.com.
News
- Premier Pauline Marois says the Quebec legislature will not endorse the Canada-Europe free-trade agreement until Ottawa explains how it will compensate the province’s cheese producers.
- The U.S. and EU are getting down to the nitty-gritty issue that divides officials and citizens on opposite sides of the Atlantic: who has the better rules for businesses and consumers. The different rules are a key issue in the taks to form the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TPP.
- In the last six months, most G-20 members have put in place new trade restrictions or measure sthat have the potential to restrict trade, according to the latest WTO report on G-20 trade measures. A total of 116 new trade restrictive measures were identified since the last WTO report, up from 109 measures recorded for the previous seven-month period.
- The EU launched a case against Brazil at the WTO on Thursday over the South American nation’s taxes on imports from cars to computers, but insisted the dispute should have no bearing on delicate free-trade talks.
- On December 13, 2013, a divided Federal Circuit panel reversed the U.S. International Trade Commission and held that the section 337 statute does not authorize the ITC to adjudicate any investigation under which the theory of infringement is based on induced infringement and the underlying direct infringement does not occur until after importation of the articles the exclusion order would bar.
Government Press Releases
- On Wednesday, December 18, 2013, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal found that the dumping of circular copper tube has caused injury to the domestic industry. Anti-dumping and countervailing duties will therefore be collected by the Canada Border Services Agency.
- On Thursday December 19, 2013, the Honourable Jim Flaherty, Minister of Finance, led a celebration event to highlight the biggest trade accomplishment in Canadian history: an agreement with the EU that was announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in October.
- On Friday December 20, 2013, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal issued orders following the expiry review of its order made on December 22, 2008. The Tribunal found that the dumping of structural tubing from Korea and Turkey was likely to result in injury and anti-dumping duties will continue. The Tribunal, however, found that dumping of structural tubing from South Africa was not likely to result in injury.
Commentary and Editorials
- A powerful bi-partisan group in the U.S. Congress is accusing Ottawa of unfairly favouring domestic companies when it hands out large IT contracts by citing national security concerns.
- During his 25-year career, mining engineer Joe Ringwald has done business everywhere and has encountered all forms of corruption. Although fraud ranges from bribery to theft by employees, combating it in foreign business operations isn’t prohibitively complex or expensive. Canadian companies can’t afford not to act.