Geneva, January 21 The World Trade Organization released an expert group report on the 21st, ruling that in the previous anti-dumping and countervailing (“double anti-counter”) investigation of some South Korean exports by the U.S. Department of Commerce violated WTO rules.
The report shows that in the four anti-dumping investigations and two countervailing investigations against the South Korean side, the evidence submitted by the South Korean side did not take into account in time, and only relied on “available facts” as the basis for the investigation, violating the WTO Anti-dumping Agreement and the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, respectively.
At the same time, the expert group rejected the South Korean accusation that the United States had adopted “favorable facts” as evidence in the investigation.
The WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures stipulates that if the respondent is unable to provide evidence during the countervailing investigation process, the investigating authorities of the importing country can use the evidence obtained to make a decision, which is called “available facts”.
The so-called “favorable and available facts” refers to the United States’s regulations that when the investigation organ decides to use the “available facts”, if it finds that the party under investigation is not cooperating at the same time, it can determine that the missing information is detrimental to the party under investigation, and then make a relevant ruling.
In February 2018, South Korea filed a lawsuit in the WTO for some of the measures in a number of “double-reverse” investigations conducted by the United States on exports to South Korea.
The “double-reverse” investigation carried out by the United States involves some corrosion-resistant steel products exported by South Korea, cold-rolled steel plates, hot-rolled steel plates and large transformers.
Under the WTO dispute settlement procedure, if a party objects to the outcome of the decision of the report of the expert group, they may submit a review of the outcome to the appellate body within 60 days of the publication of the report.
But at present, the appellate body has come to a standstill due to unilateral obstruction by the United States.
