U.S. Supreme Court Says Interpretation of PRC Law Not to Receive Deference in Vitamin C Antitrust Case

On June 14, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that U.S. federal courts should only give “respectful consideration”–rather than conclusive deference—to a foreign government’s interpretation of its laws in a U.S. legal proceeding. In so doing, the Court vacated a ruling from the Second Circuit that had taken a more absolute bright-line approach to deferring to foreign governments’ interpretations of their laws. The Court’s ruling has important ramifications for the antitrust context and beyond, which our authors discuss in this memo.