Tax & Trade Blog

In Charoen Pokphand Foods Canada Inc. v. President of Canada  Border Services Agency, the Federal Court of Appeal (the “FCA”) affirmed a decision from the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (the “CITT”) upholding the Canada Border Service Agency’s (the “CBSA”) classification of frozen wonton soup under the tariff item “stuffed pasta”, and not under the tariff item for “soups and broths”. 

Given Chief Justice Wagner’s recent comments about people forming critical opinions without reading the underlying courts’ judgement, let’s take a look at this seemingly paradoxical decision.

On May 7, 2024, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (the “CITT”) issued a preliminary determination of injury, concluding that there was evidence that the alleged dumping of certain wire rod from China, Egypt and Vietnam has caused material injury to the domestic industry.

Background Information

On March 11, 2024, following the initiation of an anti-dumping investigation by the Canada Border Services Agency (the “CBSA”), the CITT initiated a preliminary injury inquiry in respect of alleged dumping of wire rod, which we covered in a previous blog post. 

On May 13, 2024, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (“CITT”) issued a notice that it was beginning an expiry review in respect of unitized wall modules originating in or exported from the People’s Republic of China (“Subject Goods”).  On May 14, 2024, the Canada Border Services Agency (“CBSA”) similarly gave notice of the initiation of their parallel expiry review investigation.

The Subject Goods are defined as follows:

On May 3, 2024, the Canada Border Services Agency (“CBSA”) issued a Notice of Initiation of Investigation under the Special Import Measures Act (“SIMA”) in respect of the alleged dumping of certain concrete reinforcing bar from Bulgaria, Thailand and the UAE.  This investigation was prompted by a joint complaint filed by three steel manufacturers.

The goods under investigation are more specifically described as:

Global Affairs Canada (“GAC”) recently announced the opening of the tariff-rate quota (the “TRQ”) application period for the 2024-2025 dairy year, which is open from May 1, 2024, to June 15, 2024.  We previously talked about the TRQ application process; however, this year’s announcement also comes with changes flowing from New Zealand’s successful challenge of Canada’s dairy TRQ policies.