WTO Panel Rules Against U.S. Zeroing in China Sawblades, Shrimp; No Contest from U.S.
A World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel found the use of zeroing by the U.S. in the antidumping investigations on frozen warmwater shrimp and diamond sawblades from China (A-570-893 and A-570-900, respectively) to be inconsistent with U.S. WTO obligations, announced the WTO. Specifically, the panel found in United States -- Anti-Dumping Measures on Certain Shrimp and Sawblades from China (DS422) that the measures are inconsistent with Article 2.4.2 of the WTO Antidumping Agreement.
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U.S. Doesn’t Contest on Basis of Agreement to Re-do Calculations w/o Zeroing
The U.S. did not contest China’s arguments in the case, on the basis of an agreement that stipulated that China would drop some aspects of its challenge (such as the rates for certain companies, among other things) and would not ask that the panel suggest ways in which the U.S. could implement the panel's recommendations. The agreement also provided that the U.S. would implement the panel’s recommendations by recalculating relevant margins of dumping and issuing a new determination.
(In October 2011, China requested the formation of a panel, alleging the International Trade Administration improperly calculated margins of dumping by “‘zeroing” so-called “negative dumping margins” in the two AD investigations at issue. See ITT’s Online Archives 11072632 for summary of China’s request, and 11081908 and 11110818 for summaries of the U.S. Trade Representative’s requests for comments on consultations on the dispute and China’s request for a panel, respectively.)
Panel's findings and recommendations available here.