Price Comparisons under the South African Anti-dumping Laws

Abstract

South Africa has been one of the most prolific users of anti-dumping, where the number of investigations initiated by it has far outweighed the number of imports. The methods adopted by South African anti-dumping authorities have been quite polemic given the consistent faux pas in determining if the prices of the imported product and the domestic product are even comparable. Moreover, in the real world, it rarely happens that the products being sold in the domestic market of the exporting country and the ones being sold to the importing country are physically identical, and sold under the same conditions in both these markets. Accordingly, it becomes fundamental for South Africa’s anti-dumping authority—the International Trade Administrative Commission—to ensure that these prices, namely the normal value and the export price, are comparable, before adjudging whether or not the domestic industry has suffered injury as a result of dumping. Hence, both these prices would need certain adjustments to be made, in compliance with the WTO’s Anti-Dumping Agreement, to ascertain that they have occurred at the same level of trade. Additionally, because anti-dumping duties, either in the form of provisional or definitive duties, can only be imposed by investigating authorities after they have determined that the dumped imports have caused injury to the domestic market, price comparisons become increasingly vital and in turn influence the analysis of the effect of prices on the domestic like product. This article thus analyzes price comparisons under South Africa’s most recent anti-dumping investigations, to determine whether these are even consistent with the Anti-Dumping Agreement requirements on the same.