Defining Moments (Trade Terms and Practices, Briefly Defined)

Confidential Business Information/Business Proprietary Information

The term confidential business information (CBI) is defined in the USITC's regulations at 19 C.F.R. § 201.6. (The term "business proprietary information (BPI)" is used in antidumping and countervailing duty investigations.) The regulations define confidential business information as information which concerns or relates to the trade secrets, processes, operations, style of works or apparatus, or to the production, sales, shipments, purchases, transfers, identification of customers, inventories, or amount or source of any income, profits, losses, or expenditures of any person, firm, partnership, corporation, or other organization, or other information of commercial value, the disclosure of which is likely to have the effect of either impairing the USITC's ability to obtain such information as is necessary to perform its statutory functions, or causing substantial harm to the competitive position of the person, firm, partnership, corporation, or other organization from which the information was obtained, unless the USITC is required by law to disclose such information.

Parties can request confidential treatment of CBI and BPI during USITC investigations. Certain statutes and the USITC's regulations provide for the limited disclosure of certain BPI and CBI under an administrative protective order. Under section 337(n) of the Tariff Act of 1930, disclosure can be made to U.S. Trade Representative and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBI may also be transmitted to a district court as part of the record of the proceeding subject to a district court protective order pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1659.