CIT Dismisses Lawyer Conflict-of-Interest Suit

The Court of International Trade in a Nov. 15 judgment dismissed Amsted Rail's conflict-of-interest case against its former counsel for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. Concurrently filing a confidential opinion but a public order, Judge Gary Katzmann said the plaintiffs can refile under Section 1581(c). The case was originally filed under Section 1581(i), the court's "residual" jurisdiction (Amsted Rail v. U.S., CIT #22-00307).

Katzmann also vacated the court's temporary restraining order stopping the International Trade Commission from disclosing the plaintiffs' business proprietary information (BPI). In a letter, the judge said he wants the parties to review confidential information in the opinion by Nov. 16.

“The Court’s reasoning is still under seal but the public docket does confirm that Plaintiff’s appeal has been dismissed in its entirety and that judgment has been entered for Defendants," Daniel Pickard, former counsel for ARC and counsel for defendant-intervenor Coalition of Freight Coupler Producers, told Trade Law Daily in an email. "... We are obviously in complete agreement with the Court’s decision today. We were very confident in our arguments against the merits of this appeal and viewed it largely as a strategic ploy to delay the investigation. We are eager to return to the merits of the antidumping investigation and the effort to obtain relief for an industry that has been injured by unfairly priced imports.”

The case concerns a past ITC injury investigation on freight rail couplers and parts thereof from China and a present injury investigation on the same goods from China and Mexico. ARC is a U.S. producer and importer of freight rail couplers, and originally employed the Wiley law firm, where Daniel Pickard was a partner at the time, to represent it. Pickard filed an antidumping and countervailing duty petition on behalf of ARC and McConway and Torley (M&T) to start the prior injury investigation. ARC then withdrew from the petition.

In that investigation, the ITC unanimously ruled the U.S. industry was not materially harmed. During the inquiry, Pickard moved from Wiley to Buchanan Ingersoll. Days later, Buchanan filed a petition to start another injury investigation on the freight rail couplers, this time including Mexican imports as well as Chinese ones, with M&T and the union standing as the two petitioners. Mexican imports were included in the petition, despite the fact that the only Mexican imports came from ARC's affiliate ASF-K, a maquiladora factory and fellow plaintiff in the court action. Describing this as a "betrayal," ARC took to the ITC, then the CIT, to argue that Pickard and Buchanan should be disqualified from the proceeding and dismissed from the APO. At the trade court, ARC argued that the ITC's decision to give business proprietary information access to Buchanan violated the Administrative Procedure Act and its Fifth Amendment rights (see 2210170084).

Pickard and the ITC moved to toss the case on jurisdictional grounds, among other claims (see 2210250026). The ITC said invocation of Section 1581(i) ignores its plain language because this proceeding does not deal with laws providing for "revenue from imports or tonnage" or tariffs and duties. Pickard said the court does not have jurisdiction under Section 1581(i) because the plaintiffs failed to show that jurisdiction under Section 1581(c) was not manifestly inadequate.

Without detailing his reasoning for dismissal, Katzmann -- who dismissed the case "without prejudice to refiling under" Section 1581(c) -- said the conclusion was reached after considering "the issue of subject matter jurisdiction."