AK Steel Welcomes ITC's Ruling Against Subsidized Imports Of Cold-rolled Steel

(RTTNews) - AK Steel (AKS) said that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has made a preliminary determination that cold-rolled steel produced in seven foreign countries is causing or threatening to cause injury to AK Steel and the domestic steel industry.

The preliminary injury determination means that cases against cold-rolled steel producers in these seven countries will proceed.

The ITC also determined that imports of cold-rolled steel from the Netherlands are not causing or threatening to cause injury to the domestic industry because the quantity of imports from the Netherlands was "negligible," such that the imports comprised less than three percent of total imports of cold-rolled steel during the 12 months preceding the filing of the petition.

"We applaud the ITC's preliminary ruling against dumped and subsidized imports of cold-rolled steel," said James L. Wainscott, Chairman, President and CEO of AK Steel. "We expect all of our global steel competitors to play by the rules of fair trade, and this ruling is an important step in the fight to stop the injury to the domestic steel industry caused by unfairly-traded imports of cold-rolled steel."

AK Steel and certain other domestic steel producers filed petitions with the ITC and the United States Department of Commerce (Commerce Department) on July 28, 2015, charging that unfairly traded imports of cold-rolled steel from Brazil, China, India, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, South Korea and the United Kingdom were causing material injury to the domestic industry. Anti-dumping cases were filed against all eight countries.

Counter-vailing duty cases were filed against Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Korea. The cases now move to the Commerce Department for determinations as to whether foreign producers are violating U.S. anti-dumping law by selling their products at less than fair value in the United States and violating U.S. counter-vailing duty law by selling merchandise that benefits from unfair government subsidies.

The Commerce Department will calculate dumping margins, which are designed to offset the amount by which the product is sold at less than fair value, and subsidy rates, which are designed to offset the amount by which the product benefits from unfair government subsidies. Estimated counter-vailing and anti-dumping duties will be collected from importers as of the date of the Commerce Department's preliminary determinations, which will occur on or about October 21, 2015 and January 4, 2016, respectively.

If foreign producers attempt to "beat the clock" by increasing shipments into the U.S. market before the Commerce Department's preliminary determinations, anti-dumping and counter-vailing duties can be imposed retroactively beginning 90 days prior to the preliminary determinations.

Cold-rolled steel is hot-rolled steel that has been hardened through the cold-rolling process and that may or may not undergo further processing including annealing, hardening / tempering, and temper rolling.