Disputes Roundup: WTO Panels Rule on Compliance in US-China Steel, Brussels-Beijing Fasteners Cases

The month of August proved to be a busy one for the global trade arbiter, with the WTO issuing panel reports on compliance in two trade remedy disputes – the first between China and the US involving steel, the second between the EU and China involving metal fasteners. Other key items on the past month’s agenda include the review of requests for dispute panels during a 31 August meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB), as well as questions from South Korea and other WTO members over delays in dispute settlement proceedings. Panel finds China non-compliant in steel trade remedies case Late last month, the DSB adopted the report of a compliance panel which found that China failed to address earlier adverse rulings by the global trade arbiter concerning certain Chinese trade remedies against imports of US-made “grain oriented flat-rolled electrical steel,” which is primarily used by the power generation industry in transformers and other large electric machines. ( DS414 ) The duties were imposed in April 2010 following anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations by China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) on the imported steel. MOFCOM found that China’s domestic industry sustained material injury and that there was a causal link...