Open / Close Advertisement

AK Steel Applauds Preliminary Ruling in Trade Case vs. Electrical Steel

As a result, the Commerce Department will instruct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to begin requiring U.S. importers of NOES from these six countries to deposit estimated antidumping duties at the time of importation, as follows:
Country               Dumping Margins  
China                    407.52%
Germany               86.29 – 98.84%
Japan                    135.59 – 204.79%
South Korea          6.91%
Sweden                 98.46 – 126.72%
Taiwan                  28.14 – 52.23%
  
The Commerce Department also reached affirmative preliminary critical circumstances findings with respect to China, Germany, Japan and Sweden.
 
The Commerce Department’s determinations follow the filing, on 30 September 2013, of antidumping and countervailing duty petitions by AK Steel Corporation.  On 25 March 2014, the Commerce Department announced its preliminary determinations that imports of NOES from China and Taiwan benefit from subsidies bestowed by the respective governments.  The preliminary countervailing duty rates are 125.83% of the value of the imported steel from China and up to 12.82% of the value of the imported steel from Taiwan. 
 
“AK Steel applauds the Commerce Department’s preliminary ruling that imports of non-oriented electrical steel are being dumped into the United States,” said James L. Wainscott, chairman, president and CEO of AK Steel.  “These determinations will help level the playing field by taking away the unfair advantage that many of our foreign competitors have enjoyed for years.”
 
The next step in the trade action will be the Commerce Department’s verification of factual information submitted by producers in South Korea and Taiwan. 
 
There will then be an opportunity for parties to submit case and rebuttal briefs to the Commerce Department and to participate in a hearing.  Following these events, the Commerce Department will issue its final antidumping and countervailing determinations.  The current deadline for the announcement of these final determinations is 29 July 2014, but that date can be extended to early October 2014. 
 
NOES is an alloy steel that contains by weight more than 1.0% but less than 3.5% of silicon and not more than 0.08% of carbon or 1.5% of aluminum.  NOES has a surface oxide coating, to which an insulation coating may be applied.  The petitions cover NOES whether or not in coils, regardless of width, and having a thickness of 0.20 mm or more.  NOES is manufactured using a specialized rolling and annealing process.  It has a core loss that is substantially equal in any direction of magnetization in the plane of the material.  Based on these unique product characteristics, NOES is used primarily in the production of motors and generators.   
 
AK Steel is represented in these actions by Joseph W. Dorn and Stephen A. Jones of the law firm King & Spalding LLP.