*EPF504 05/04/01
Commerce Revokes Antidumping Order on Japanese Supercomputers
(Decision ends case with unusual aspects) (310)
By Steve La Rocque and Bruce Odessey
Washington File Staff Writers
Washington -- The Department of Commerce has revoked antidumping duties on Japanese supercomputers upon the request of Cray Research Incorporated, the company that filed the original dumping complaint.
The department's action became effective with publication of the Federal Register notice May 3. According to the notice, the U.S. Customs Service will return any anti-dumping duties, plus interest, collected since October 1, 2000.
In August 1997 the department made an affirmative dumping determination, calculating the dumping margins at 454 percent for NEC Corporation and 173.08 percent for Fujitsu Ltd.
The case has a few unusual aspects, including the fact that the proposed sale that triggered the investigation was never made.
The proposal was for NEC to sell four supercomputers over five years to the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, which received money indirectly from the federal government through the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Cray, the only domestic U.S. producer of vector supercomputers, argued in its case that NEC was offering to sell supercomputers to the research center at far below production costs in order to establish a foothold in the U.S. procurement market.
The 1997 determination to impose antidumping duties came weeks after the research center canceled its deal with NEC following NSF's decision not to contribute to it. Because that cancellation came after the period under investigation, it had no effect on the determination.
Since the dumping case, the reality of the computer market has changed drastically. Now many users no longer need supercomputers because they process information just as quickly by connecting a number of other computers together.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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