On May 15, 2023, the United States Department of Commerce (DOC) issued a notice to extend the time limit for issuing the final determination of the anti-circumvention investigation on imported steel pipe products from Vietnam because it takes more time to investigate and review relevant and updated information.
On August 4, 2022, the US Department of Commerce issued an official notice on the initiation of a trade remedy circumvention investigation for some steel pipe products imported from Vietnam.
Previously, the DOC had to extend once to consider initiating an investigation against trade remedy duty circumvention for some steel pipe products imported from Vietnam.
The US initiated an investigation based on a request from large steel pipe manufacturers in the US such as Nucor Corporation, Bull Moose Tube, Maruichi Steel Corporation, etc., accusing Vietnam of importing hot rolled steel – the main raw material for the production of steel pipes – from China, Taiwan – China, Korea, India, mainly under HS codes 7306.61 and 7306.30.
After that, Vietnamese enterprises simply outsourced and processed the materials into steel pipes and exported them to the US in order to evade the trade remedy duty that the US was applying to China, Taiwan – China, Korea, India.
According to the allegation, Vietnam acts as a transit country for anti-dumping duty circumvention action for steel products exported to the United States.
The United States extends the time to issue the final determination of the investigation against trade remedy duty circumvention on steel pipe products imported from Vietnam
On April 12, 2023, the DOC published a preliminary determination on the investigation against trade remedy duty circumvention on steel pipe products imported from Vietnam and some other countries.
According to the provisions of the US law on anti-dumping and trade remedies, the United States should issue a final determination within 300 days from the date of issuance of the notice of initiation of an investigation into the case of trade remedy circumvention, i.e. the issuance due date is 31 May 2023.
If the case is too complicated and requires more investigation time, the DOC may extend the time to issue the final determination but not more than 65 days from the original due date, which is 365 days from the date of the notice of initiation
Accordingly, considering that the case is too complicated and needs more investigation time, the DOC has issued this notice to extend the time to issue the final determination on the anti-circumvention investigation of steel pipe products imported from Vietnam to August 4, 2023.
The notice can be download here.
ASL LAW is the top-tier Vietnam law firm for Anti-dumping & countervailing. If you need any advice, please contact us for further information or collaboration.