DOC decides not to deduct S201 margins in AD cases

DOC decides not to deduct S201 margins in AD cases

As industry sources report to SteelOrbis, the US Department of Commerce (DOC) has decided that it will not deduct the S201 duties when calculating the duty margins under the framework of anti-dumping duties. The intention to continue deducting the S201 duties in anti-dumping calculations were initially aimed to soften the reaction of US steel industry on the removal of safeguard measures back in December 2003. However today's market conditions are not putting the US steel industry under such severe pressure, and this fact has probably played a significant role in the DOC's recent decision. Such deduction of S201 duties applies for products that are subject to both duties of anti-dumping and the S201 safeguard measures. At the stage of calculating the anti-dumping duty margins, certain costs added onto the ex-works price level of the product at its origin are deducted in order to obtain the actual figure for determining the amount of dumping. With this decision now, S201 measures being excluded from the deductions of the total sales figure of the product into the US, the margin of dumping will comparatively be narrower compared to the cases where the S201 duty was deducted. As a result the exporting companies will end up with a comparatively lower AD duty margin burden. Still, it has also to be kept in mind that the US steel producers are highly expected to appeal against this decision.