New Circumvention cases reported
02 June 2015
Shortly before the European Commission issued the Regulation extending anti-dumping duties on steel fasteners from China, anecdotal reports began to surface of a new round of retrospective duties on Chinese fasteners allegedly trans-shipped via a third country, this time Taiwan.
A small number of importers in the UK, the Czech Republic, and Poland, were reportedly advised by their respective national customs authorities of liabilities for back duties on imports from Taiwan. It is understood that OLAF identified eight Taiwanese companies as either involved in trans-shipment or refusing cooperation with its investigations. One estimate is that the imported volumes amount to 140 containers. One of the exporters is known to be Chinese owned. Three others have websites offering an extremely broad range of products suggesting they were traders and manufacturing activity was limited or non-existent.
There are unconfirmed reports one importer may be liable for more than 2 million euros in back duties. Other importers say the value of their liability is substantially lower as they only occasionally imported direct.
OLAF’s investigations are not reported publicly although importers may be provided confidential copies of investigation reports, if they require Customs authorities to provide evidence to support their accusations.
Importers are also reporting that EU investigators appear to be active in both Vietnam and India. Two exporters are reported to be under specific investigation in India, with other factories being contacted with requests to cooperate with EU investigators. Indian authorities have also reportedly tightened up on the issuance of Form A certificates to support duty exemption under the General System of Preference.
These developments are not entirely surprising when consideration is given to Eurostat data for EU imports of the cited range under the recently renewed anti-dumping measures (EU regulation 2015/519) on steel fasteners originating from China or consigned from Malaysia. Year-on-year import tonnage of these fasteners from India to the EU increased by 39% or some 17,000 tonnes. Imports of these products are 3.7 times higher than 2008, before anti-dumping measures were originally applied to China. Imports from Vietnam increased 35% year-on-year and are five times higher than 2008. Imports of stainless steel fasteners from Vietnam have also substantially increased in the last two years – up 42% in 2014 compared with 2013 and double the volume in 2012.
While some of these increases in volume will undoubtedly be attributable to importers switching sourcing from China and Malaysia as a result of the anti-dumping duties, the European Commission almost inevitably will have viewed these significant changes in the pattern of trade as cause for investigation.
