Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-10-07051/USCOURTS-caDC-10-07051-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 410
Nature of Suit: Antitrust
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 25, 2011 Decided April 15, 2011 

No. 10-7051 

COMPANHIA BRASILEIRA CARBURETO DE CALICIO, ET AL., 

APPELLANTS

v. 

APPLIED INDUSTRIAL MATERIALS CORPORATION, ET AL., 

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:01-cv-00646) 

Bruce K. Cohen argued the cause for appellants. With 

him on the briefs were Daniel B. Allanoff and Michael R. 

Lazerwitz. 

Dale Hershey argued the cause for appellees. With him 

on the brief were Michael R. Borasky, Audrey K. Kwak, 

James H. Hulme, Matthew M. Wright, Alan Kanzer, Amber 

Wessels, Edward J. Longosz, II, and Charles R. Claxton. 

Marianne R. Casserly entered an appearance. 

Before: ROGERS, TATEL, and KAVANAUGH, Circuit 

Judges. 

USCA Case #10-7051 Document #1303442 Filed: 04/15/2011 Page 1 of 8
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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge

KAVANAUGH. 

KAVANAUGH, Circuit Judge: Three Brazilian 

corporations brought suit against four American corporations 

and two of the American corporations’ parent companies. 

The Brazilian plaintiffs alleged that defendants submitted 

fraudulent petitions to the U.S. International Trade 

Commission and thereby induced the ITC to impose 

unwarranted duties on plaintiffs’ products. 

The District Court dismissed plaintiffs’ complaint for 

lack of personal jurisdiction. Because none of the defendants 

is located or incorporated in the District of Columbia, 

plaintiffs primarily relied on defendants’ petitions to the ITC 

(a government agency located in Washington, D.C.) to 

establish personal jurisdiction over the defendants. The 

District Court held that the petitions to the ITC were not a 

basis for personal jurisdiction because, under the District of 

Columbia’s “government contacts” exception to D.C.’s 

personal jurisdiction statute, “entry into the District of 

Columbia by nonresidents for the purpose of contacting 

federal governmental agencies is not a basis for the assertion 

of in personam jurisdiction.” Environmental Research Int’l,

Inc. v. Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc., 355 A.2d 808, 813 

(D.C. 1976) (en banc). The District Court also rejected 

plaintiffs’ alternative argument that jurisdiction was proper 

because defendants had conspired with a trade association that 

was located within the District of Columbia. 

We agree with the District Court that plaintiffs’ 

allegation that defendants conspired with a trade association is 

insufficient to support personal jurisdiction. 

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The government contacts issue is more difficult. 

Plaintiffs argue that the government contacts exception does 

not apply because defendants’ petitions to the ITC were 

fraudulent. Therefore, according to plaintiffs, defendants’ 

petitions to the ITC provide a basis for personal jurisdiction 

over defendants. The scope of the government contacts 

exception is unsettled, however, under the D.C. Court of 

Appeals’ precedents. The D.C. Court of Appeals is of course 

the controlling authority for interpretation of D.C. law, and 

that court promulgated the government contacts exception. 

We therefore deem it appropriate to certify to the D.C. Court 

of Appeals a question necessary to the resolution of this case: 

Under District of Columbia law, does a petition sent to a 

federal government agency in the District provide a basis 

for establishing personal jurisdiction over the petitioner 

when the plaintiff has alleged that the petition 

fraudulently induced unwarranted government action 

against the plaintiff?

I 

 In 1994, the U.S. International Trade Commission 

imposed duties on imports of ferrosilicon from Brazil. 

Ferrosilicon is an alloy used in manufacturing. In 1999, the 

ITC removed those duties after discovering that much of the 

information on which the ITC had relied in imposing the 

duties was false. The ITC determined that domestic 

producers of ferrosilicon had submitted that false information 

to the ITC in two petitions (one filed in 1992 and a second 

filed in 1993), as part of a conspiracy to fix the price of 

ferrosilicon in the United States. See Ferrosilicon From 

Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Venezuela, 

Inv. Nos. 303-TA-23, 731-TA-566-570, 731-TA-641, 751-

TA-21-27, USITC Pub. 3218 (Aug. 1999). 

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 In 2001, three Brazilian ferrosilicon manufacturers 

brought suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of 

Columbia against four domestic producers of ferrosilicon and 

two of the domestic producers’ foreign-owned parent 

companies. Plaintiffs sought damages resulting from the 

duties imposed on their products by the ITC, alleging that 

those damages were caused by defendants’ submission of the 

fraudulent petitions to the ITC. 

 The District Court stayed plaintiffs’ suit pending 

defendants’ appeal of the ITC’s decision. The Court of 

International Trade affirmed the ITC’s decision in 2008, and 

the Court of International Trade’s judgment was in turn 

affirmed by the Federal Circuit in 2009. See Elkem Metals 

Co. v. United States, 30 I.T.R.D 2076 (Ct. Int’l Trade 2008), 

aff’d, 324 F. App’x 923 (Fed. Cir. 2009). 

 In 2010, the District Court dismissed plaintiffs’ 

complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction over defendants. 

We review that decision de novo. See FC Inv. Group LC v. 

IFX Markets, Ltd., 529 F.3d 1087, 1091 (D.C. Cir. 2008). 

II 

 Plaintiffs argue that defendants’ relationship with The 

Ferroalloys Association, a trade association that was located 

within the District of Columbia, establishes personal 

jurisdiction over the defendants because defendants conspired 

with that association in submitting (and later defending) the 

fraudulent petitions to the ITC. See Second Amendment 

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Found. v. U.S. Conference of Mayors, 274 F.3d 521, 523-24 

(D.C. Cir. 2001).1

 We disagree. 

 To establish jurisdiction based on defendants’ conspiracy 

with the association, plaintiffs “must plead with particularity

the conspiracy as well as the overt acts within the forum taken 

in furtherance of the conspiracy.” Jungquist v. Sheikh Sultan 

Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, 115 F.3d 1020, 1031 (D.C. Cir. 1997) 

(emphasis added) (internal quotation marks omitted). We 

agree with the District Court that plaintiffs failed to do so. 

With respect to overt acts in the forum, plaintiffs’ complaint 

claims that defendants coordinated their efforts to deceive the 

ITC “through a series of meetings, telephone calls and 

mailings” that were “under the aegis of the” association. 

Complaint at 10-11, J.A. 60-61. Those claims do not allege 

any overt act within the District (other than contacts with the 

ITC, which we discuss below), much less do they allege an 

overt act with particularity. Plaintiffs’ complaint does allege 

that one specific event – a February 12, 1991, meeting 

between several defendants – transpired within the District of 

Columbia. But plaintiffs made no effort to controvert an 

affidavit submitted by defendants stating that this meeting in 

fact took place in Virginia. “Thus, [plaintiffs] failed to plead 

with sufficient particularity any overt acts within the District 

of Columbia in furtherance of the conspiracy, and personal 

jurisdiction over [defendants] is unavailable under a 

conspiracy theory.” Jungquist, 115 F.3d at 1031. 

 

 1

 The Ferroalloys Association was named as a defendant in 

plaintiffs’ complaint, but the association has since gone bankrupt 

and is no longer a party to this litigation. 

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III 

 Plaintiffs alternatively contend that the District Court had 

personal jurisdiction over the defendants because of 

defendants’ allegedly fraudulent petitions to the U.S. 

International Trade Commission, a government agency 

located in Washington, D.C. The District of Columbia’s 

jurisdictional statute allows personal jurisdiction over a 

company “transacting any business in the District of 

Columbia,” provided that the claim against that company 

arises from business transacted in the District. D.C. Code 

§ 13-423. Defendants do not dispute that petitioning the ITC 

to impose duties on one’s competitors is “transacting 

business.” Nor do defendants dispute that plaintiffs’ claim 

arose from the filing of the petitions. 

 Rather, defendants assert that, under the government 

contacts exception to the District of Columbia’s personal 

jurisdiction statute, petitioning the ITC cannot establish 

jurisdiction over the petitioner. The en banc D.C. Court of 

Appeals has explained the government contacts exception as 

meaning “that entry into the District of Columbia by 

nonresidents for the purpose of contacting federal 

governmental agencies is not a basis for the assertion of in 

personam jurisdiction.” Environmental Research Int’l, Inc. v. 

Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc., 355 A.2d 808, 813 (D.C. 

1976). 

 If that were the end of the case law, we would apply the 

government contacts exception articulated in Environmental 

Research and affirm the District Court’s ruling that there was 

no jurisdiction in this case. However, a subsequent decision 

of a D.C. Court of Appeals panel may have limited the 

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government contacts exception to cases in which the contacts 

with the federal government were an exercise of First 

Amendment rights. See Rose v. Silver, 394 A.2d 1368, 1372-

74 (D.C. 1978); see also Lex Tex Ltd. v. Skillman, 579 A.2d 

244 (D.C. 1990); Naartex Consulting Corp. v. Watt, 722 F.2d 

779, 786 (D.C. Cir. 1983). The Rose case arguably means 

that fraudulent petitions to government agencies do not fall 

within the government contacts exception. Cf. Cal. Motor 

Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U.S. 508, 511-15 

(1972) (fraudulent petition not protected by Petition Clause). 

Relatedly, this Court has suggested in dicta that the 

government contacts exception might not apply where a 

plaintiff “made credible and specific allegations . . . that the 

companies had used [government] proceedings as an 

instrumentality of [an] alleged fraud.” Naartex, 722 F.2d at 

787. Of course, such a rule could largely negate the 

government contacts exception because it might be easy to 

sufficiently plead fraud in many cases that otherwise might be 

dismissed because of the government contacts exception. 

Thus, it is not clear whether the D.C. Court of Appeals would 

hold that the government contacts exception applies in cases 

of an allegedly fraudulent petition to a government agency. 

 The D.C. Court of Appeals may answer certified 

questions from this Court that “may be determinative of the 

cause pending in [the] certifying court and as to which it 

appears to the certifying court there is no controlling 

precedent in the decisions of the District of Columbia Court 

of Appeals.” D.C. Code § 11-723(a). This Court has certified 

questions to the D.C. Court of Appeals when “District of 

Columbia law is genuinely uncertain” and the question is of 

“extreme public importance.” Sturdza v. United Arab 

Emirates, 281 F.3d 1287, 1303 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). As discussed above, the scope of 

the government contacts exception is genuinely uncertain. 

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This case presents a question of sufficient public importance 

because its resolution could affect numerous individuals and 

corporations that petition the federal government. Cf. id.

(question is of “extreme public importance” because it affects 

“architects throughout the country (perhaps even around the 

world)” who “often submit bids to perform architectural 

services in this city”). 

 We therefore certify the following question to the D.C. 

Court of Appeals: 

Under District of Columbia law, does a petition sent to a 

federal government agency in the District provide a basis 

for establishing personal jurisdiction over the petitioner 

when the plaintiff has alleged that the petition 

fraudulently induced unwarranted government action 

against the plaintiff?

So ordered. 

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