The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has announced that it intends to change its approach for calculating the dumping margins in its investigation of mattresses imported from Serbia. This decision was announced after DOC issued its preliminary determination in November 2020, but before it issues its final determination in this case, which is expected in several weeks.
In its announcement, DOC states that it has decided to apply the so-called “Multinational Rule,” a seldom used provision of the U.S. trade laws that takes into account the fact that the Serbian producer of the imported mattresses is related to one or more mattress producers based in other countries. DOC states that after applying the multinational rule, the dumping margin for Serbia increases from 13% (announced in DOC’s preliminary antidumping determination) to 111%.
DOC stated that it is announcing this decision at this point so that the parties in the Serbian case can provide legal and factual comments to the agency on the multinational rule before DOC issues its final determination. Nevertheless, DOC made clear that it is not amending its preliminary determination. As a result, this change will not affect the 13% antidumping duty deposit rate set in DOC’s preliminary determination.