The World Trade Organization (WTO) on Tuesday ruled that the US Department of Commerce violated WTO rules in conducting anti-dumping and countervailing investigations against some South Korean exports.
According to the report, the US Department of Commerce failed to take into account the evidence submitted by the ROK in time in its four anti-dumping investigations and two anti-subsidy investigations, and used only "available facts" as the basis of the investigation, respectively violating the WTO's Anti-dumping Agreement and the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures.At the same time, the panel rejected the South Korean side's accusation that the US had used "adverse available facts" as evidence in the investigation.
According to the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, in the course of countervailing investigation, if the party under investigation is unable to provide evidence, the investigation authority of the importing country can use the evidence already obtained to make a decision. Such evidence is called "available facts".The so-called "adverse available facts" refers to the US regulations that, when deciding to use the "available facts", if the investigative authorities also find that the party under investigation is not cooperating, they can determine that the missing information is detrimental to the party under investigation and then make a relevant ruling.
In February 2018, South Korea filed a case at the WTO against some of the measures in a number of investigations by the United States into South Korean exports.The U.S. investigation involves some corrosion-resistant steel products, cold-rolled steel, hot-rolled steel and large transformers exported from the Republic of Korea.
Under WTO dispute settlement procedures, if a party disagrees with the findings of the panel's report, it may request a review of the findings to the Appellate Body within 60 days of the report's release.But for now, the appellate body has stalled because of unilateral US obstruction.