Although it is only March, there have been numerous petitions and complaints filed at the USITC this year.

The BAT would have two primary effects related to USITC investigations.  First, it would raise the after-tax cost of imports relative to domestically produced goods.  Second, the BAT is likely to cause an appreciation of the U.S. dollar, though economists differ on the degree of the exchange rate adjustment. 

The proposed tax plan has the potential to influence U.S. trade remedy investigations, which depend on the prices at which imported products are sold in the U.S. market and home market prices.  This blog examines how the BAT might affect one aspect of U.S. antidumping investigations: the calculation of dumping margins by the Department of Commerce

In December 2014, Commerce released its new list of surrogate countries for China. Neither Indonesia nor the Philippines are on the new list, meaning that Commerce and parties in China NME cases will face increasing difficulties in finding usable surrogate countries on the official list, outside of Thailand. Perhaps reflecting these new difficulties, Commerce has begun to allow more countries not on the list to serve as surrogate countries.

2014 was another eventful year at the ITC for antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) cases with some 8 petitions filed, 14 investigations completed, and 23 sunset votes on 40 orders. The 8 AD/CVD petitions filed in 2014 were down from the 14 filed last year, but still above the 5 cases filed in 2012.

2013 was a big year for new AD/CVD cases.

A section 701 (countervailing duty) & 731 (antidumping duty) petition was filed on the last day of 2013 (12/31/2013) on Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Products from People’s Republic of China (AD & CVD) and Taiwan (AD) by Wiley Rein LLP on behalf of SolarWorld Industries America Inc.

When a U.S. control number or “CONNUM” is the same as the comparison market CONNUM the USDOC determines the products to be identical. However, when the identical comparison market CONNUM was not sold, how does the USDOC’s SAS computer programming go about identifying the “most similar” comparison market match?

The former “Nails Test” method for identifying whether a company engaged in targeted dumping was wholly replaced by a two-staged test known as the Differential Pricing Analysis. Beginning in March, 2013 with the Xanthan Gum cases from China and Austria, the Department has applied this new methodology over 50 times with interesting results.

What appears simple on the surface is, in fact, not very simple at all. As a result, the road to understanding, let alone mastering, these calculations can be daunting.

On 23 September 2013, the World Bank released its latest per capita Gross National Income (GNI) rankings for calendar year 2012. Countries that are “close” to China in per capita GNI (i.e., in reasonable proximity to the band fixed by the current surrogate countries) include the Philippines, Costa Rica, and Mexico.

The countries cited in the petition are China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Sweden, and Taiwan.