US ASKS FOR WTO'S ARBITRATION
18 febrero 2010
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Published by Reuters-Yahoo! News
Washington (Reuters) - US Trade officials have objected to the European Union's request to impose up to US$311 million (S$438 million) in annual sanctions on US goods in a long-running dispute over a method for calculating anti-dumping duties, a US trade official said on Wednesday.
'Last Friday, Feb 12, the United States filed its objection,' USTR spokesman Nefeterius McPherson told Reuters in an email. 'The filing of the objection automatically resulted in the matter being referred to arbitration. The objection should be on the WTO website by tomorrow.'
The EU notified the World Trade Organisation earlier this month that it wanted to impose the sanctions after the United States failed to comply with an original decision in a case launched by Brussels in 2003 over anti-dumping duties on steel products and other goods.
The EU has proposed imposing a prohibitive import tariff of 100 per cent on US exports worth US$311 million, or a tariff of 13.8 per cent on exports worth US$477 million, and reserved the right to impose further sanctions related to a practice called zeroing.
The WTO's dispute settlement body is expected to take up the EU sanctions request on Thursday. The US objection starts an arbitration process that usually takes about two months to decide the amount of sanctions the EU can impose.
WTO rules allow members to slap extra duties on goods sold at below-market or 'dumped' prices if that hurts businesses in the importing country.
Calculating the anti-dumping duties typically involves comparisons of the prices of different batches of imported goods to work out the average difference in price.
Washington (Reuters) - US Trade officials have objected to the European Union's request to impose up to US$311 million (S$438 million) in annual sanctions on US goods in a long-running dispute over a method for calculating anti-dumping duties, a US trade official said on Wednesday.
'Last Friday, Feb 12, the United States filed its objection,' USTR spokesman Nefeterius McPherson told Reuters in an email. 'The filing of the objection automatically resulted in the matter being referred to arbitration. The objection should be on the WTO website by tomorrow.'
The EU notified the World Trade Organisation earlier this month that it wanted to impose the sanctions after the United States failed to comply with an original decision in a case launched by Brussels in 2003 over anti-dumping duties on steel products and other goods.
The EU has proposed imposing a prohibitive import tariff of 100 per cent on US exports worth US$311 million, or a tariff of 13.8 per cent on exports worth US$477 million, and reserved the right to impose further sanctions related to a practice called zeroing.
The WTO's dispute settlement body is expected to take up the EU sanctions request on Thursday. The US objection starts an arbitration process that usually takes about two months to decide the amount of sanctions the EU can impose.
WTO rules allow members to slap extra duties on goods sold at below-market or 'dumped' prices if that hurts businesses in the importing country.
Calculating the anti-dumping duties typically involves comparisons of the prices of different batches of imported goods to work out the average difference in price.
