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I will try to explain what it was that I drew attention to at DIT that so upset my managers. Trade remedies (anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases) is a sphere that the UK will have to take over from the EU after Brexit. In March, weeks away from a possible implementation period...
I saw a comment by our chief lawyer on a document that appeared to cast doubt on whether we could conduct "transition reviews" in an implementation period, which was something we had suspected since the EU would still have responsibility for the UK's trade remedies...
Transition reviews aren't just sitting and reading about a case, they are full-scale, year-long investigations that involve sending investigators from the UK to foreign factories to go through their accounts, and asking companies to complete lengthy questionnaires...
The UK had invented the concept of a "transition review" for its plan to "transition" approximately 43 EU anti-dumping/anti-subsidy tariffs after Brexit. The investigation would make the tariffs conform to the UK market alone, as the EU's investigations included the whole EU...
The WTO sets the general framework for anti-dumping investigations, and there is no such thing as a transition review under WTO rules. We would be winging it. But if the EU maintains responsibility for our trade remedies in an implementation period, how could we conduct reviews?
It made sense to ask whether a UK trade remedies body would be needed at all during an implementation period, and whether it should be sending investigators around the world at enormous expense with no legal basis for conducting the investigations...
The chief lawyer was very angry that I drew attention to her comment about the transition reviews - which was on a document that my line manager had sent me - and that I asked other people in the office what they thought about it. So I got handed an additional performance review.
Two months later when the performance review took place my line manager told me I was fine, but a week later, his line manager overturned the performance review and said that my nine-month probation period would have to be extended because I wasn't passing minimum standards.
After that they gave me a list of times when they hadn't liked questions I'd asked in meetings, although they never said anything during or immediately after the meetings - they just handed me the list. And said I had to have a second formal performance review to discuss those.
They ignored all of my objections and I refused to participate calmly in the second performance review, so I was dismissed. There is also another legal question relating to transitioning the EU measures in a no deal scenario. This could be challenged, and we could lose...
...all the 43 "transitioned" EU anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on the basis that we never conducted the investigations in the first place and the measures do not conform to UK industry.
In a no deal the UK will definitely have to take over this trade remedies function, but we should be ready to open lots of new cases because the "transitioned" measures could be struck down.
This is just one of the hundreds or thousands of similar situations that could arise in a no deal. Trade remedies is an example of how much there is to deal with.
