DS: United States — Reviews of Countervailing Duty on Softwood Lumber from Canada

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Current status

 

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Key facts

 

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Latest document

  

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Summary of the dispute to date

The summary below was up-to-date at

Consultations

Complaint by Canada.

On 14 April 2004, Canada request consultations with the United States concerning: (i) the failure of the US Department of Commerce (DOC) to complete expedited reviews of the countervailing duty order concerning certain softwood lumber products from Canada in order to promptly establish an individual countervailing duty rate for each requesting exporter; and (ii) the refusal and failure of USDOC to conduct company-specific administrative reviews of the same countervailing duty order in order to establish a final individual countervailing duty rate for each requesting exporter.

Canada claims that the United States has violated its obligations under Articles 10, 19.1, 19.3, 19.4, 21.1, 21.2, 21.4 and 32.1 of the SCM Agreement and Article VI:3 of GATT 1994.

The final countervailing duty order whose expedited and administrative reviews are at issue in this dispute was at issue in WT/DS257.

 

Mutually agreed solution

On 12 October 2006, the United States and Canada informed the DSB that they had reached a mutually agreed solution under Article 3.6 of the DSU in the disputes WT/DS236, WT/DS247, WT/DS257, WT/DS264, WT/DS277 and WT/DS311. This solution was in the form of a comprehensive agreement (Softwood Lumber Agreement) between the United States and Canada, dated 12 September 2006. On 23 February 2007, the United States and Canada informed the DSB that on 12 October 2006 they had concluded a further Agreement, which amended the original Agreement to facilitate its entry into force.