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:: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 ::

NAFTA Panel ruling should eliminate CVD in softwood lumber dispute Canada NewsWire
The softwood lumber NAFTA Panel on countervailing duties (CVD) unanimously ruled today that the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) must once again redo its subsidy calculations by July 30, 2004.

"This is great news for BC and all of Canada," said John Allan, president of the BC Lumber Trade Council. "If the DOC follows the instructions of the NAFTA Panel, there should a finding of no subsidy in BC and most likely in every other province, which will eliminate the current 18.79% CVD cash deposit rate."

"Today's Panel decision means that the DOC's original investigation should have resulted in a zero subsidy finding for Canada as a whole, in which case there would have been no basis for imposing the countervailing duties," said Allan.

The NAFTA Panel rejected every key argument made by the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, such as the use of U.S. timber or log prices as a benchmark for pricing Canadian lumber.

Conversely, the Panel accepted every key argument that BC and Canada made. The Panel ruled that the DOC made several critical errors in its calculation of each province's subsidy rate and that when fixed, the result should be a zero subsidy finding.

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