On April 4, a preliminary determination was issued by US Department of Commerce that temporary countervailing duties should be imposed on exporters of iron mechanical transfer drive components (“ITDCs”) from China. NOK (Wuxi) Vibration Control China Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “NOK”), a client of Dentons China Region and a mandatory respondent to a countervailing duty investigation, was found to have a countervailable subsidy rate of 2.68%, while another mandatory respondent’s countervailable subsidy rate was 33.94%, and an “all-others” rate of 15.51%. The highest was 166.77%.

On November 17, 2015, based on a request made by the petitioner TB Wood’s Incorporated, a local US firm, US Department of Commerce started a countervailing duty investigation against exporters of certain iron mechanical transfer drive components from China. As one of the main exporters and a mandatory respondent, NOK was much concerned and retained Beijing-based senior partner Cai Kaiming to represent it in the investigation. Cai and his team, working with partners Mark P. Lunn and Eugene Degnan from Dentons Washington office, responded to the Department’s requests for information and answered questions in a detailed manner, and lodged active defense. In spite of all complexities and workloads, the attorneys managed to argue for an unusually low countervailable subsidy rate for NOK.