BETHESDA, Md. - USEC Inc. (NYSE: USU) and the Solicitor General of the United States filed legal briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court today outlining why all imports of low enriched uranium (LEU) should be subject to the U.S. antidumping law, regardless of the type of contract under which the LEU is imported. The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in the case in late 2008 and render a decision in the first half of 2009.

The Supreme Court agreed in April 2008 to accept the petitions filed by USEC and the U.S. government requesting review of the March 2005 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that imports of LEU under certain kinds of contracts are not subject to the U.S. antidumping law. Reflecting the important national interests at stake in this case, the general counsels of U.S. Departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy and State had joined the Solicitor General of the United States in the government’s petition requesting Supreme Court review. (Click here to download the U.S. government's brief)

USEC and the U.S. government have asked the Supreme Court to reverse the Federal Circuit’s decision and uphold Commerce’s determination that LEU imports pursuant to SWU (separative work unit) contracts involve a sale of merchandise subject to the antidumping law. Such a determination would help ensure the continued stability of the U.S. nuclear fuel market. The dumping of foreign-produced LEU continues to pose a significant threat to the U.S. enrichment industry and the economic well being of its workers and the communities in which they live.

The cases before the Supreme Court, which have been consolidated, are titled United States v. Eurodif, S.A. et al., and USEC Inc. and United States Enrichment Corporation v. Eurodif S.A., et al. In its brief, USEC argued that the U.S. Department of Commerce “reasonably concluded that imports of LEU pursuant to SWU contracts involve a sale of merchandise subject to the antidumping law, rather than a sale of services outside the scope of that law.”

“If the antidumping law is not given the construction provided by Commerce, it will fail to achieve its basic purpose. It will fail to protect U.S. manufacturing industries from the threat of unfair foreign competition,” USEC’s brief explains.

As described in the brief, the threat of significant imports of LEU under SWU contracts outside the scope of the antidumping law could not only undermine USEC’s ability to deploy the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, but could also undermine or limit other plans for new enrichment plants in the United States, the economics of USEC’s current operations at the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant in Kentucky, and the completion of the landmark Megatons to Megawatts nonproliferation program with Russia.

“In the absence of effective enforcement of the antidumping laws, an industry vital to the defense of the nation, the U.S. uranium enrichment industry, faces a serious threat from foreign imports of LEU. It was precisely to avoid threats of that kind that Congress, almost a century ago, enacted the antidumping law,” USEC’s brief concludes.

USEC Inc., a global energy company, is a leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.

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