Australia will officially end its antidumping duties on certain Chinese wind towers April 16, the country’s AD Commission said this month. The announcement came after Australia and China agreed in October to resolve World Trade Organization disputes over the Australian duties as well as Chinese duties on Australian wine (see 2310230060).

China said it has “expressed great concern” with the EU over a decision by the bloc earlier this month to begin customs registration for Chinese electric vehicle imports, setting them up to face retroactive tariffs if an ongoing EU investigation concludes they benefited from unfair subsidies.

The U.K. on March 12 excluded mats made of glass fiber filaments from the countervailing duty order on continuous filament glass fiber products from Egypt. The Department for International Trade made the change following a Trade Remedies Authority recommendation to exclude the goods. CVD will still cover chopped glass fiber strands 50 mm or less in length and glass fiber rovings, excluding glass fiber rovings that are "impregnated and coated and have a loss on ignition of more than 3%."

Brazil, Mexico and Canada recently announced antidumping and countervailing duty actions and decisions on certain products from mainland China, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported March 7.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned two people and five entities behind commercial spyware used for human rights abuses and “mass surveillance campaigns.” The designations include the founder of the Intellexa Consortium, which OFAC said developed commercial spyware known as Predator and that is used to target government officials, journalists and others.

A World Trade Organization dispute panel on Feb. 20 found a U.S. attempt to revisit part of its countervailing duty laws as they pertain to subsidies on agricultural products violated the nation's WTO commitments. The panel said the U.S. failed to implement the findings of a previous dispute panel ruling, which said these same laws cut against the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in relation to a subsidy finding on ripe olives from Spain.

Japan extended its antidumping duties on electrolytic manganese dioxide from China until Feb. 25, 2029. The duties range from 34.3% to 46.5% based on the exporter, and a review showed that a lapse of the duties would likely lead to "recurrence of dumping and injury caused by dumped imports to the domestic industry," the Ministry of Finance announced Feb. 20.

Indonesia requested dispute consultations at the World Trade Organization on Feb. 12 regarding the EU's antidumping duties on fatty acids from Indonesia, the WTO announced. Indonesia said the duties violate the WTO's Anti-Dumping Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The request formally starts the dispute and sets up both parties to start a 60-day consultation period. Should consultations prove unsuccessful, "the complainant may request adjudication by a panel," the WTO said. The dispute concerns fatty acids, which are used in a "variety of consumer products as well as industrial lubricants."

The European Commission on Feb. 6 released a guide to help EU companies file antidumping complaints. The Directorate-General for Trade said the guide lays out the "necessary contents of a complaint and the supporting evidence that the Commission needs to decide" whether it can launch an AD investigation, along with a "structured format to help companies prepare complaints, links to information sources, forms to facilitate the provision of data and step-by-step guidance for calculations." A section explains how to put together expiry review requests, which are required to extend AD orders.

The U.S. will make a statement in the dispute on the U.S. origin marking requirements for goods from Hong Kong during the World Trade Organization's Jan. 26 dispute settlement body meeting, the WTO said. A dispute panel ruled against the U.S. national security defense of its trade measure requiring goods from Hong Kong to be labeled as being made in China (see 2212220029).