The World Trade Organization (WTO) will scrutinise a US law allowing its companies to benefit from antidumping duties, which the European Union (EU) and eight other WTO members say violates global free-trade rules, trade sources said yesterday.
The protest by the nine - the largest number of joint complainants to present a case - concerns the Byrd Amendment, named after Senator Robert Byrd.
They say, when the US customs service fines a foreign firm for selling goods at unfairly low prices on the US market, the Byrd Amendment allows it to pass on the payment to the US companies that brought the dumping complaint.
Mr Carlo Trojan, the EU's ambassador to the WTO, said last month the US system provided "a clear incentive" for its domestic industry to file cases against foreign companies exporting to the United States.
On Monday, Washington suffered a set back in another dispute, pitting it against the EU, when a WTO panel ruled against its system of tax breaks for exports.
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