A trade remedy investigation is decided on the record you build inside it — not on the merits of your business. We run that record: the questionnaire, the cost and price data behind it, the injury and causation argument, the verification visit and the hearing, in the authority's own language and on its timetable.
Most trade remedy matters are lost in the first six weeks, before anyone has argued anything. A notice of initiation arrives with a questionnaire attached and a return date that will not move; the data the questionnaire asks for lives in four systems and two languages; and the response, once filed, becomes the record the authority will rely on for the rest of the proceeding. What is not in it at that point is very difficult to put in later.
So the work starts with the record rather than with the argument. We establish what the authority will accept as evidence, what your systems can actually produce within the window, and where the gap between those two has to be closed — and only then do we decide what to argue. That order is the whole practice: a strategy that the record cannot support is a strategy that fails at verification.
We act for exporters and importers named in an investigation, for domestic producers seeking relief from injurious imports, and for trade associations coordinating a response on behalf of an industry. The mandate runs from the notice through to the determination and the duty position that follows it — and then into the reviews, because a measure imposed today is a measure that has to be managed for five years.
Call us when
Most mandates start in one of these and end up touching two. Each is run by the same team, so nothing is handed across a boundary mid-proceeding.
01
Full representation before the investigating authority from the notice of initiation onwards — the questionnaire response and the cost and price data behind it, written submissions, the verification visit, and the hearing.
02
The economic half of the case, built to be tested. Dumping and subsidy margins on one side; material injury, threat of injury and the causal link on the other — including the other factors an authority is required to consider.
03
A measure is not the end of the matter. Sunset, interim and new-shipper reviews, refund and reimbursement claims, and challenges to a determination in the forum that will hear them.
04
The advisory side, taken before a notice arrives. Where your product sits against measures already in force, what a change in sourcing or classification does to that position, and what an investigation would cost you if one were opened.
Timings are indicative — every authority runs its own timetable, and the one that governs your matter is stated in the assessment before anything is agreed.
01
The notice names the product, the origins and the period of investigation. We read it for what it commits the authority to and what it leaves open, register your interested-party status, and establish the calendar the rest of the matter runs on.
Week 1–2
02
The heaviest stretch of the proceeding and the one that decides most of it. Sales and cost data reconciled to your audited accounts, adjustments identified and evidenced, confidential and public versions prepared together rather than one after the other.
30–37 days
03
Officials arrive to test whether the submission is true. Everything filed has to be traceable back to a source document in front of them, on the day. We prepare the reconciliation, rehearse the walkthrough with your finance team, and attend.
Month 4–8
04
Oral argument before the authority, and the written case that has to accompany it. Provisional duties are often imposed around this point; where they are, we deal with the immediate customs and cash-flow consequence alongside the proceeding itself.
Month 6–10
05
The authority discloses the essential facts behind its intended finding and gives a short window to comment. This is the last opportunity to correct a calculation, and it is frequently where the duty rate actually moves.
Month 10–18
06
A measure typically runs five years. We set out what has to be monitored, what triggers an interim review, when the sunset clock starts, and how refunds are claimed — so the position is managed rather than rediscovered when expiry approaches.
Five years
Trade remedy is three separate regimes with three different tests. Naming them is the quickest way for a reader to place their own matter.
Sixteen jurisdictions of first-hand engagement experience sit behind these — matters run before the authority, not referrals passed to a local firm.
See the jurisdictionsAnswers here are general. Which of them applies to your matter depends on the authority, and that is what the assessment establishes.
Participation is voluntary in form and close to compulsory in effect. An exporter who does not respond is generally assessed on the facts available — which in practice means the highest rate on the record, applied for the life of the measure. Non-participation is a decision to accept that rate.
The real question is whether the volume you send to that market justifies the cost of a full response. That is the first thing the assessment answers.
Usually, yes — but only if the data work starts immediately and in parallel with the legal work rather than after it. Extensions are sometimes available and are requested properly and early where they are; they are never something to plan around.
Tell us the deadline in the first line of your message and the matter is triaged accordingly.
They rarely are. No company keeps its ledgers in the shape an investigating authority asks for, and the reconciliation between the two is a large part of what this work is. What matters is that every figure filed can be traced back to your audited accounts on the day of verification — and that trail is something we build with your finance team, not something we ask you to produce.
Yes, and for industry associations coordinating a response on behalf of their members — it is often the only economic way for an industry of mid-sized producers to run an application or a defence. A conflicts check comes first, and where interests within a group diverge we say so at the outset rather than discovering it at disclosure.
No. Interim reviews, new exporter reviews, refund claims and scope or classification challenges all exist after imposition, and the sunset review that decides whether the measure continues is a full proceeding in its own right. What is lost is the chance to shape the original record — which is why the position is worth managing from the day the measure lands.
An application has to establish standing for the domestic industry, evidence of dumping or subsidisation, and material injury caused by it — before an authority will initiate. Most of the work therefore happens before anything is filed. We assess honestly whether the evidence supports an application, because an initiation that fails is worse than no application at all.
Practice 02
The same craft against a different regime: UAE PDPL and GDPR frameworks, cross-border transfers, and the governance a regulator will accept — built to be implemented, not filed.
As it stands — it does not need tidying first. The Director reads it and tells you what is actually at stake, within one business day.
