CAFC Orders CIT to Hear Softwood Lumber Funds Claim

July 11, 2011 by Barbara Chaves|Penalties and Courts

A group of 43 U.S. softwood lumber producers not belonging to the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports sued at the Court of International Trade for a share of the $500 million in export charges collected by Canada and distributed to Coalition members under the Softwood Lumber Agreement of October 12, 2006 (the 2006 SLA). However, the CIT declined to hear the case, claiming it did not have jurisdiction because the U.S. Trade Representative had entered into the SLA under the legal authority of a different section of the Trade Act of 1974 than the one that gives the CIT jurisdiction (section 2171, rather than the CIT’s section 2411). However, tracing the history of the softwood lumber dispute since 1986, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned the CIT and ruled that the 2006 SLA does indeed fall within the CIT’s statutory jurisdiction. While allowing that a different argument, not yet adjudicated, might still succeed in removing jurisdiction, the CAFC ordered the CIT to hear the case. (Decision 2010-1389, decided 06/28/11)