Japanese steelmakers claim victory in cold-rolled sheet

Staff -- Purchasing, 12/8/2005

A tariff no longer hangs over cold-rolled sheet sourced in Japan. Japanese steelmakers have won a belated victory after years of litigation and appeals in a trade case against cold-rolled sheet imports. The lack of further action in the case means that Japanese cold-rolled sheet in coil has been found to be fairly traded, according to Hidenori Tazawa, chairman of the New York-based Japan Steel Information Center.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) originally ruled in 2002 that U.S. mills did not suffer injury from the imports, so the case was dismissed. However, U.S. steelmakers appealed to the Court of International Trade after a federal Court of Appeals failed to overturn the ITC decision. The world court didn't act and the last opportunity for an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court passed in early October.

In its original decision, the ITC found that imposition of additional anti-dumping duties on top of Section 201 tariffs would have been in violation of the remedial nature of the anti-dumping statute. "We hope that - as a result of this experience - U.S. steelmakers will refrain from seeking unjustified import restrictions in the future," Tazawa says.