WTO Rules in Favor of Korea in Anti-dumping Suit against US

The WTO determined that the dumping margin calculation method that the United States recently employed in its anti-dumping investigation regarding Korean washing machines constituted a violation of the WTO’s rules.

The determination means that the U.S. cannot take advantage of zeroing any longer as a non-tariff barrier. Until recently, the U.S. adopted zeroing in its margin calculation, claiming that target dumping occurred with regard to specific Korean washing machines sold during a certain period of time.

Since the KORUS FTA took effect three years ago, the U.S. government has created various non-tariff barriers so as to cope with a rapid increase in the export of electronics products from Korea to the United States. The Department of Commerce applied a determination of dumping to Korean washing machines in late 2012 and imposed an anti-dumping tariff of 9.29 percent on the products of Samsung Electronics, 13.02 percent on those of LG Electronics and 82.41 percent on those of Daewoo Electronics. The measure led to a sharp decline in the companies’ exports of the item to the U.S.

In response, the Korean government determined that the measure was a violation of the WTO Agreement and filed a lawsuit against the U.S. with the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of the WTO in August 2013, which resulted in the recent determination. The U.S. is likely to lodge an appeal immediately after the official announcement of the decision.