Wire Decking Duty Update
A while back, I posted an update on the state of the pending lawsuit regarding anti-dumping duties on imported Chinese wire decking.
More than a year ago, a group of wire decking manufacturers that included AWP Industries, ITC Manufacturing, J&L Wire Cloth, Nashville Wire Products and Wireway Husky Corporation filed a petition with the International Trade Commission to institute antidumping duties because Chinese imports were priced so low that it was difficult for these U.S. manufacturers to compete. Last July 20, the Trade Commission made a preliminary ruling that there was “a reasonable indication of material injury to the U.S. industry producing wire decking caused by unfairly traded imports from China.”
Late last week, however, the Trade Commission did an about-face on this ruling, denying the Commerce Department the opportunity to enforce any duties at all. In its ruling on July 1, 2010, the ITC said manufacturers were “neither materially injured nor threatened with material injury” because of the imports. I don’t know enough about this to know what caused the difference in opinion and why this ruling was reversed, but I do know that it is a setback for the five suppliers. If anyone out there has more info, please let me know about it. What happens next?
