WTO appellate body rejects China's appeal in US steel dispute

GENEVA - The World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body rejected China's appeal against a panel rulings in a dispute over China's import duties on US grain oriented flat-rolled electrical steel (GOES) and upheld the panel's findings on Thursday.

The Appellate Body found that the panel did not err in its application of certain WTO agreements and did not act inconsistently with its duty to make an objective assessment of the price effects analysis of China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), the report said.

A WTO panel circulated its report on June 15, which backed most of the claims of the United States, saying that China had acted inconsistently with WTO rules governing the use of countervailing duties with respect to each of the 11 programs at issue.

Some of the US claims, for example, MOFCOM did not disclose the data and calculations it used to arrive at the dumping margins for the two respondent companies, were rejected by the panel.

China then made an appeal to the WTO on July 20, claiming the panel had not properly interpreted relevant regulations and objectively assessed MOFCOM's investigation and conclusion over "price effects."

MOFCOM initiated countervailing and anti-dumping investigations over the imports of GOES from the United States in 2009 and decided to impose countervailing and anti-dumping duties on them in April 2010.

On Sept 15, 2010, the United States requested consultations with China on this issue and requested the establishment of a panel on Feb 11, 2011, which was then established on March 25, 2011.