On Monday, the US Department of Commerce (DOC) announced that it has postponed the date for its final determination in the administrative review of the Suspension Agreement with Russia on hot-rolled carbon-quality steel products (coils) until November 28, 2012.
The final results had been due by October 1, but - as expected - the DOC extended the review by the maximum amount of time permitted by the trade laws.
In May, the DOC made a preliminary determination that there was price undercutting by imports of Russian hot-rolled coils during the period of review. Consequently, the DOC entered into discussions with the Russian Ministry of Economic Development (MED) in an attempt to bring the Suspension Agreement back into alignment with its statutory requirement to prevent the undercutting of domestic price levels for hot-rolled coils. However, if the DOC and the Russian MED cannot reach an agreement and if the DOC's final results make no changes from the preliminary results, then the DOC will terminate the Suspension Agreement. If that happens, the DOC will direct US Customs to suspend liquidation of all entries of hot-rolled coils from Russia that were made during the 90-period prior to the publication of the DOC's termination notice. Such entries as well as future entries would be subject to potential dumping duties.
In fact, the DOC's decision to postpone the date for the final determination mentions that the DOC and the MED are involved in ongoing consultations to resolve the outstanding issues and that the postponement will give the DOC and the MED "a reasonable opportunity" to attempt to reach a negotiated settlement.