Petitioning and Settling Trade Cases - Where Antitrust and Trade Principles Avoid Collision

U.S. antitrust and trade laws are meant to protect competition, but at times seem to move in different directions. While trade laws can push competitors together to petition or respond to antidumping or other alleged injury from import competition, antitrust laws seek to prevent cooperation between competitors that has anticompetitive effects or harms consumers. Concerns about antitrust exposure may lead many companies to suffer in silence, not wishing to exchange the problem of import competition for the risk of antitrust liability. But in jurisdictions like the United States, companies seeking relief through the trade laws should consider that there are several protections available to competitors acting in the petitioning and remedy phases including implied immunity, Noerr-Pennington, and the foreign sovereign compulsion defense. This article summarizes those protections and outlines how they may arise in the context of trade investigations and trade settlements if companies follow certain principles.

Devon McCarthy (Summer Associate, White & Case) contributed to the development of this publication.

Reproduced with permission from CPI Antitrust Chronicle July 2024. For further information please visit: www.competitionpolicyinternational.com.

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