China's largest automobile glass maker Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co Ltd, won its case against the dumping ruling of the US Department of Commerce (DOC).

Legal analysts believe the win is important for other Chinese companies suffering from frequent US protectionist behavior.

The US Court of International Trade in New York has ruled that the US DOC should withdraw its dumping charges against Fuyao.

The DOC ruled in last February in favor of imposing dumping duties of 11.8 percent on Fuyao's US shipments of automotive replacement windshields.

Fuyao Group and its US subsidiary, Greenville Glass Industries Inc, appealed on April 10 last year to the US Court of International Trade in New York. The federal district court specializes in appeals against dumping charges laid by the DOC.

The DOC has been asked to submit a report on the case around mid-March next year.

President of the Fuyao Group Cao Dewang is buoyant over the tentative success.

"We believe the truth is on our side, so we spent a lot of time and money to prove it," Cao said.

Fuyao Group has spent US$3 million on the lawsuit.

Fuyao also won in a court ruling against a dumping charged laid against the company in Canada in September last year.

The Canadian International Trade Tribunal in it's final determination said the Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co, Ltd, had caused no injury to the Canadian industry.

It means a previously imposed weighted average tariff rate of 24.09 percent, placed on its products by the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, will have no effect.

A lawyer from the Beijing Junhe Law Firm said the win by Fuyao creates a good legal precedent for Chinese companies.

In the DOC's ruling, it rejected Fuyao's real costs for materials imported from Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea because of its suspicion that the exporters of the materials in those countries was getting subsidies from Fuyao.

According to US laws and the rules of the World Trade Organization, the DOC cannot reject a company's actual raw material costs in the market economy even if there is proof those materials benefit from subsidies.

"It is critical for us to win this case, because if the current ruling stands, it will set a precedent and impact Chinese companies," the lawyer said.

For example, ongoing US dumping investigations would benefit from such a verdict.

Chinese TV makers imported raw materials from Japan and the United States and then exported the TV sets back to United States.

The United States has filed eight dumping cases against China this year, involving a value of US$2.6 billion, damaging normal US-China trade.

But Cao said the case has not affected his company's operations this year. "Many auto makers directly place orders with us because of the case, rather than only autoparts makers."

(China Daily December 25, 2003)