Some Ethical Questions for Attorneys Who Initiate Antidumping Actions

Abstract

The antidumping laws are structurally protectionist. There is no way to construct an antidumping law that is not protectionist. Basically, antidumping laws protect domestic producers at the expense of the general public. They provide a legal means of destroying the property of foreign competitors and making them less able to compete in domestic markets. There are a number of ethical questions that need to be explored in this area. Yet an extensive review of the ethical, economic and legal literature failed to find a single article (with one exception) that addressed these ethical issues. The present paper aims to correct this deficiency in the literature. The paper concludes that an attorney who helps a client initiate an antidumping action is always engaging in unethical conduct.

Keywords: antidumping, ethics, legal ethics, protectionism, rent seeking

JEL Classification: F1, F13, F6, D63, D72, F52, O24, O51, P14