Brazil retaliates against United States

Brazil has outlined the details of its retaliation against the United States, following the latter's refusal to comply with a World Trade Organization ruling that it had wrongly subsidised its local cotton production, preventing Brazil from exporting its own cotton there. According to Reuters tonight, the estimated annual impact of the retaliation is $591 million, estimates Brazil's foreign ministry. The news item adds:
"Brazil is expected to publish by March 23 a separate list worth an additional $238 million in annual cross-retaliation penalties. That list would be subject to public hearings for 20 days and focus on intellectual property rights and services, ministry officials said.

It could break patents and copyrights in the pharmaceutical or music industries, analysts said, potentially making U.S. industries more susceptible to farm disputes. "That will impact much more than goods -- it could set an important precedent and harm the United States in other cases," said Haroldo Cunha, head of the Brazilian cotton growers assocation Abrapa. ...

The WTO has previously granted two other countries the right to cross-retaliate in trade disputes, but Brazil would be the first nation ever to apply it".
The IPKat understands that more details will be posted soon on the IP Tango specialist intellectual property website by leading Brazilian practitioner and blogger José Carlos Vaz e Dias.

See earlier IP Tango coverage of this dispute here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

How the retaliation is reported elsewhere: see the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Associated Press.
Things to do with cotton balls here
Brazil retaliates against United States Brazil retaliates against United States Reviewed by Jeremy on Monday, March 08, 2010 Rating: 5

2 comments:

  1. I am really hoping that Brazil does not go down the path of harming US IP rights. This will have a huge negative blowback on the relationship between the countries and will discourage US companies from investing in Brazil just when we should be encouraging them to come in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. For the USA to be subsidizing cotton in this day and age seems very wooly-minded.

    Bravo Brazil!

    ReplyDelete

All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.

It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.

Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html

Powered by Blogger.