Antitrust and Trade Regulation Commons^™

Untangling The Market And The State, Wentong Zheng

UF Law Faculty Publications

The government plays increasingly active and diversified roles in the modern economy. How to draw the boundary between the market and the state has emerged as a contentious issue in various areas of law, including constitutional law, antitrust, and international trade. This Article surveys and critiques the law’s current approaches to the market-versus-state divide, embodied in four tests based on ownership, control, function, and role, respectively. This Article proposes an alternative market-versus-state test based on the nature of the power being exercised in the challenged action. This power-based test not only better distinguishes between the market and the state, but …

Counting Once, Counting Twice: The Precarious State Of Subsidy Regulation, Wentong Zheng

UF Law Faculty Publications

Subsidy regulation is in a precarious state. While it has been so ever since the conception of the current subsidy regulation regime, the recent disputes between the United States and China over the “double counting” or “double remedies” of subsidies have threatened the mere functionality of the current regime. This Article argues that the double counting controversy reveals the self-contradictions of the current subsidy regulation regime as to the fundamental question of why subsidies need to be regulated. These self-contradictions make it impossible to devise a coherent solution to the double counting problem within the framework of the current subsidy …

Is The Wto Quietly Fading Away?: The New Regionalism And Global Trade Rules, Stephen J. Powell, Trisha Low

UF Law Faculty Publications

While scholars and governments alike view the liberalization of international trade as a positive development, they disagree on the medium that will accomplish this objective with the highest economic returns. Some experts believe that multilateralism through the 150+ member World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only way to achieve truly open and efficient trade. Others view multilateralism as but an aspiration and find that regionalism offers the only viable prospect for the meaningful further opening of markets.

In light of what we label the "new regionalism," our paper explores in detail the positive and negative effects of regional trade arrangements …

Expanding The Nafta Chapter 19 Dispute Settlement System: A Way To Declaw Trade Remedy Laws In A Free Trade Area Of The Americas?, Stephen J. Powell

UF Law Faculty Publications

Chapter 19 of the NAFTA transfers judicial review of U.S., Canadian, and Mexican government investigations under the controversial anti-dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) laws from national courts to binational panels of private international law experts. The system stands as a unique surrender of judicial sovereignty to an international body, a hybrid of national courts and international dispute settlement with as yet no parallel in the world of international trade or other international law regimes. Binational panel decisions have been controversial because agencies chafe at their intimate examination of agency findings and supporting evidence. Panels also are viewed as substantially more …

Limiting Anticompetitive Government Interventions That Benefit Special Interests, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

When government regulates, it may either intentionally or unintentionally generate restraints that reduce competition ("public restraints"). Public restraints allow a business to cloak its action in government authority and to immunize it from antitrust regulation. Private businesses may misuse the government's grant of antitrust immunity to facilitate behavior that benefits businesses at consumers' expense. One way is by obtaining government grants of immunity from antitrust scrutiny. A recent series of Supreme Court decisions has made this situation worse by limiting the reach of antitrust law in favor of sector regulation. This is true even though the Supreme Court refers to …

Order Without (Enforceable) Law: Why Countries Enter Into Non-Enforceable Competition Policy Chapters In Free Trade Agreements, D. Daniel Sokol

UF Law Faculty Publications

Over the past ten to fifteen years, there has been an explosion of bilateral and regional free trade agreements in Latin America (together, these are called "preferential free trade agreements" or PTAs). The purpose of PTAs is to increase trade, regulatory, and investment liberalization. As effective trade liberalization requires more than just a reduction of tariffs, PTAs include "chapters" in a number of areas of domestic regulation. These chapters address domestic regulation and create binding commitments to liberalize domestic regulation that may impact foreign trade. Among chapters that address domestic regulation, many of the Latin American PTAs include a chapter …

Current Administration Of U.S. Antidumping And Countervailing Duty Laws: Implications For Prospective U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Talks, Stephen J. Powell, Craig R. Giesse, Craig L. Jackson

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article discusses the current administration of the U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty laws in proceedings involving products from Mexico. Specifically, this Article begins by providing an overview of the basic statutory and regulatory provisions of the U.S. antidumping duty law, emphasizing the application of certain provisions in cases involving imports from Mexico. The Article then focuses its discussion upon recent developments in the U.S. countervailing duty law that have had a unique effect upon Mexican exporters. The Article continues by highlighting the antidumping and countervailing duty provisions of the recently concluded U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement (the "FTA" or "Agreement"). …