A firm perspective of antidumping and countervailing duty cases in the United States of America

Abstract

The role played by firms in the prosecution of antidumping and countervailing duty cases in the United States of America is understudied. This paper provides greater understanding of the challenges faced by firms during the process of prosecuting antidumping and countervailing duty cases in the United States of America. This is achieved by applying a theoretical model of corporate political activity to data collected through interviews with 24 trade attorneys in Washington DC, practicing in the area of antidumping and countervailing duty law. Antidumping and countervailing duty cases are found to require significant resource commitments from firms in the participating industries, as well as requiring individual firms to make a number of strategic decisions. The value of an affirmative decision and imposition of duties to the domestic and foreign industry is found to be more nuanced than previous studies have suggested. Non-duty effects of AD and CVD cases are also confirmed. Finally a clearer understanding of the role of individual firms in antidumping and countervailing duty cases is shown to have the potential to improve how industry influence is taken account of in future research.