Antitrust Issues Arising Out of Actual or Potential Enforcement of Trade Laws

A WTO working group is now studying the trade law/competition law interface. The group has concentrated on market access issues and policy analysis, but has not yet focused specifically on actual cases involving both bodies of law. The United States experience is instructive in this regard. US cases in four areas illuminate the key issues at the interface, and point the way toward the development of international norms. (1) Firms may face antitrust liability for knowingly advancing false claims or evidence in trade cases, but are protected by a broad right of advocacy and strict rules of causation; (2) firms may settle trade cases on a price basis, usually subject to public review requirements; (3) price agreements among two or more trade case defendants or plaintiffs will usually not be antitrust exempt; (4) damage liability for price-fixing will normally not be eliminated merely because price increases were one way to react to a governmental dumping finding. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.