How a Supreme Court fight over vitamin C holds a key to what Chinese law means in America
Highest US court to rule on whether it should defer to China’s own view of its law in anti-trust hearings
China is fighting “suspicion”, “hostility” and “disrespect” in Washington, according to Beijing’s commerce ministry, which is facing a US Supreme Court battle in an antitrust case.
The ministry levelled those charges against a lower federal district court, which ruled in 2006 against a group of Chinese vitamin C producers that were accused of illegally colluding to fix the price and supply of their products.
The defendants have been in legal limbo ever since as the case has made its way through the US legal system.
The legal fight has come under renewed scrutiny not only because it was argued in the country’s highest court on Tuesday, but also because China has become a target for the other two branches of America’s government.
At each stage of the case, China’s commerce ministry – or “Mofcom” – has filed an amicus brief to the US court arguing that the defendants were only following mainland Chinese law and could not obey both that and US law.
In 2014, an appeal court reversed the district court’s ruling, arguing that foreign governments were entitled to “binding deference” regarding their own laws when courts interpret how US law applies to foreign companies.