Rockwell International Corp. announced Feb. 26 that the U.S. Department of Commerce has issued a favorable preliminary ruling supporting antidumping petitions that Rockwell filed in June 1995.
Rockwell's Graphic Systems Division alleged in those petitions that unfair pricing of large newspaper printing presses produced by certain Japanese and German manufacturers had injured the U.S. printing-press industry.
Under Commerce's preliminary ruling, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries would incur dumping duties of 47.6 percent; Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho Ltd., 58.1 percent; Man Roland, 17.7 percent; and Koenig & Bauer-Albert, 46.4 percent.
"We are extremely pleased with the DOC decision," said Robert Kuhn, president of Rockwell Graphic Systems. "The antidumping petition was filed after Mitsubishi sold printing presses to The Washington Post at a price significantly lower than Mitsubishi's cost to manufacture the equipment. We continue to support free trade as long as we have a level playing field, but we also will defend ourselves aggressively against unfair trade practices."
Under U.S. trade law, the Commerce Department will issue a final determination in the next few months stating whether international manufacturers are indeed dumping presses and at what levels. Following that decision, the International Trade Commission will issue a final injury determination.
Helgi-Schmidt Liermann, CEO of Man Roland's North American Web Press Division, commented, "Based on the historical actions of the Department, we have always expected that some level of duty would be initially imposed against every company named in the petition. We view this as a preliminary determination and plan to vigorously defend our belief that we have fairly priced our products."
He added, "Man Roland has always competed on the merits of our technology, and our pricing has always reflected that position." He emphasized that the determination will not require any of Man Roland's existing customers to pay additional duties.
On March 5, at NAA's SuperConference in Miami Beach, representatives from Mitsubishi and TKS also pointed out that the process is still in its preliminary stages.
"Mitsubishi is cooperating in the investigation," said Mitsubishi Sales Manager Ron Ehrhardt. "We obviously don't agree with what's going on. We're expecting the final DOC tariff finding in June. They could find that no injury was caused or that the injury was not caused by foreign importers."
TKS Sales Manager Mike Shafer agreed. "It's preliminary now," he said. "We're optimistic we'll be cleared. We're waiting until it goes to the ITC."
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