CIT Awards Over $40,000 in Costs and Fees from China Magnesium Case
The Court of International Trade awarded Tianjin Magnesium International to pay over $40,000 in attorney fees and costs to the U.S. government and US Magnesium for its misconduct in court proceedings related to an antidumping duty administrative review on pure magnesium from China. The government was awarded its requested amount of $8,302.20 in full, but the court heavily reduced the $215,572.43 requested by US Magnesium to $34,042.72. The company should have gone off the “Laffey Matrix” of average attorneys fees, rather than the fees it actually billed, which ranged from $150 per hour for a paralegal to $645 an hour for a partner. CIT had originally said the fees and costs would be awarded in a November opinion (see 12112329).
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“TMI’s repeated efforts -- through counsel -- to obstruct Commerce’s exercise of its statutory duties, to delay proceedings through frivolous argumentation and filings, and to mislead the court on material matters of fact and law constitute an intolerable level of vexatiousness and bad faith.”
(Tianjin Magnesium Int'l Co. v. United States, Slip Op. 12-53, dated 04/23/13, Judge Tsoucalas)
(Attorneys: David Riggle of Riggle & Craven for plaintiff Tianjin Magnesium International Co., Ltd.; Stuart Delery for defendant U.S. government;. Stephen Jones of King & Spalding for defendant-intervenor US Magnesium LLC)