Equipment giant Caterpillar has launched a legal challenge against the UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) in an attempt to overturn an 18.81 per cent anti-dumping duty on its Chinese-built excavators.
The case, heard in London before Mr Justice Richards, marks the first court challenge regarding anti-dumping tariffs since the UK left the European Union.
The TRA introduced the five-year tariff last year following a complaint from British machinery manufacturer ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, which alleged that excavators manufactured in China were being sold into the UK at unrealistically low prices. Following its investigation into midsized and heavy-duty excavators, the watchdog concluded that Chinese-made machines were entering the UK market at unfairly depressed prices, citing state-subsidised materials such as cheap steel.
awyers for Caterpillar claimed that the duty assessed by the post-Brexit trade authority was so high that the manufacturer no longer exports the affected excavators from China to the UK. The company reports that the TRA applied flawed logic when calculating the duty.
Tristan Jones KC, representing Caterpillar, claimed that the authority's analysis was severely flawed, arguing that the manufacturer's UK export prices for the excavators were actually higher than its domestic prices in China. In a written submission, he alleged that by inflating the company's costs and profits beyond what was actually paid or earned in China, the TRA treated a firm charging premium prices for UK export as though it were dumping.
However, Philip Moser KC, representing the TRA, countered that none of Caterpillar’s grounds for challenging the decision had any merit. In his written submission, Moser argued that artificially low steel or electricity prices resulting from non-commercial factors, such as government subsidies, create a "particular market situation" that applies across the broader market.
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