CAFC Affirms Byrd Amendment Does Not Apply to Imports from Canada and Mexico
The Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit has affirmed an earlier judgment by the Court of International Trade that the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act of 2000 (CDSOA), often referred to as the "Byrd Amendment," does not apply to imports from Canada and Mexico.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The Byrd Amendment, which has since been repealed, essentially directed that certain antidumping and countervailing duties collected by U.S. Customs and Border Protection be deposited into special accounts and then distributed to domestic producers who had incurred and claimed qualifying expenditures.
The question posed to the courts in Canadian Lumber Trade Alliance et al. v. U.S. et al. was whether the Byrd Amendment would apply to North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) parties (Canada and Mexico).
The CIT answered this question by examining Section 408 of the NAFTA Implementation Act, which requires that any amendment after 1993 to Title VII (AD and CV duty rules) of the Tariff Act of 1930, would apply to goods from a NAFTA country only if the amendment contained specific language stating that goods from a NAFTA party were covered.
As the CDSOA amended Title VII and does not contain specific language stating that goods from a NAFTA party are covered, the CIT ruled that the CDSOA does not apply to AD and CV duties assessed on imports from Canada or Mexico.
The CIT also issued a judgment and injunction against further Byrd Amendment distributions of the AD or CV duties assessed on softwood lumber, magnesium, and hard red spring wheat from Canada.
(The CDSOA was repealed in 2006 due to a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling against its legality. See ITT's Online Archives or 02/25/08 news, 08022515, for most recent BP summary on the continuation of disbursements after its repeal.)
(See ITT's Online Archives or 06/07/07 news, 07060715, for BP Summary of SlipOp. 06-104, which details the CIT's ruling that Customs' application of the Byrd Amendment violates NAFTA.)
CAFC decision 06-1622,-1625,-1626,-1627,-1636,-1648 (dated 02/25/08) available at http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/06-1622%20-1625%20-1626.pdf