Commenting on the complaint filed by United States Steel Corporation (US Steel) with the US International Trade Commission (US ITC) to initiate an investigation under Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 against the largest Chinese steel producers and their distributors, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) has pointed out that Section 337 investigations are initiated to deal with intellectual property infringement disputes while China’s carbon steel and alloy steel products are what the MOC termed a “mature product” where “intellectual property rights disputes do not exist”and so it is groundless to consider China’s exports of steel products as causing intellectual property infringement. In addition, he said that both Chinese and US steel enterprises need to deal with issues with through dialogue and cooperation to face the current slack demand and overcapacity in the world steel industry, adding that trade protectionism will do little to resolve the issue.
The Section 337 complaint in question alleges illegal unfair methods of competition and seeks the exclusion of all unfairly traded Chinese steel products from the US market. The complaint alleges three causes of action: illegal conspiracy to fix prices, theft of trade secrets and circumvention of trade duties by false labeling.