International trade · 02/05/2011

Adjudication and Enforcement

The U.S. International Trade Commission is adopting a rule amendment revising a certain provision of the agency's rule for investigations and related proceedings under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The Supplement to the Strategic Human Capital Plan 2009- 2013 issued by the Commission on January 18, 2011, provides that the Office of Unfair Import Investigations ("OUII") will not participate in a subset of Section 337 cases and will participate selectively in another subset of cases. In order to better allocate its resources, OUII may have to assign attorneys to investigations on an issue by issue basis. The rule amendment will allow OUII the flexibility to reassign attorneys to cases as necessary without having to publish notices announcing the change in the Federal Register. The new rule will have no substantive effect on Commission practice in conducting Section 337 investigations.