WASHINGTON (Oct. 27)—The U.S. Commerce Department's International Trade Administration has preliminarily rejected a Japanese polychloroprene rubber manufacturer´s petition to receive the same zero-percent antidumping duty as an earlier joint venture with DuPont Dow Elastomers Inc.
Showa Denko K.K. said in its petition that after its 50-50 polychloroprene joint venture in Japan was dissolved in November 2002, it became the successor organization to the joint venture. As such, SDK said, it deserved continuation of the agreement with the ITA not to pay any antidumping duties on its polychloroprene, which Japanese producers have had to pay since 1973.
However, the ITA said in the Oct. 21 Federal Register that SDK hadn't established its successorship status to the agency's satisfaction. The SDK management structure, it noted, is significantly different from the joint venture, with no DuPont Dow senior managers and only a few supervisors remaining with the company after SDK took over completely. It preliminarily assessed SDK an antidumping duty of 55 percent.
An ITA spokesman said Oct. 26 that interested parties had until Oct. 29 to file comments on the decision and until Nov. 5 to request a hearing on the SDK issue.