An Important Judgment on Indian Antidumping

Last week, our Indian cooperative lawyer sent us an Indian Supreme Court Judgment on the calculation of Non-injury Price in antidumping investigation. This one can be called a milestone. It has a great influence on Indian antidumping investigation procedure.

One important decision is that the DA(Designated Authority) had `clearly erred in law' by determining injury and computing NIP(Non-injurious Price) for a particular company or enterprise, instead of the domestic industry as a whole. "The approach adopted by the DA, in our opinion, will lead to a situation where an artificial discrimination will be created between the integrated and non-integrated companies to the peril of the smaller plants with no backward integration (that is, a factory which also produces its own raw materials, etc)," reasoned the court.

The other one is that the calculation of NIP should not be kept confidential and not disclosed to interest party.

In the past, when dealing with Indian antidumping investigation, we are always headache with the confidential problem. Piles of information have been kept as confidential, especially the calculation of Export Price, Normal Value, Non-injurious Price, Landed Value. Without knowing these information, how can we argue any mistake in the calculation which might leads to a wrong antidumping duty?

Actually, the calculation of NIP has been used as a secret weapon by the DA's officiers. I have to say that India is a country full of corruption. The corruption there is quite different from what is in China. The Indian officers will directly ask for money. But in China, the government officers would not directly ask for that. They will express themselves in a more implicit way. The calculation of NIP is the way for DA officers to give a good result to those companies who bribe them. And the calculation has been kept confidential so that no evidence will be held by any interest parties who might challenge the DA officers.

I am glad that India is also walking in the same way for adminstrating the country in a legal way as what China is doing. Sunshine will be the best antiseptic.

Below is a news clip from Indian website which is quite inspiring.

http://www.blonnet.com/2006/09/23/stories/2006092300871100.htm