 EC SAYS U.S. BROKE TRADE RULES IN AKZO-DUPONT ROW
The European Community Commission has
charged the United States with breaking international trade
rules by excluding Dutch-made fibres from the U.S. Market and
said it would take the issue to the world trade body GATT.
    In the latest of a series of trade disputes with
Washington, the executive authority alleged that a section of
the U.S. Tariff Act was incompatible with the GATT (General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) because it discriminated
against imported products in favour of domestically-produced
goods.
    The Commission said it would ask Geneva-based GATT to rule
on whether the section in question, which officials said had
proved a barrier to many EC exporters, conformed to its rules.
    Commission officials did not rule out retaliatory measures
if, after a GATT decision against it, Washington failed to
bring the disputed section into line with international rules.
    The executive's decision to go to GATT follows a complaint
to it by the Dutch company Akzo <AKZO.AS>, whose "aramid"
synthetic fibres have been banned from the U.S. Market because
of charges by the U.S. Firm <Dupont> that the fibres violate
the American company's patents.
    Akzo alleged that the ban, imposed by the U.S.
International Trade Commission (ITC), was discriminatory and
incompatible with GATT provisions.
    The dispute centres on the fact that section 337 of the
U.S. Tariff Act gives the ITC jurisdiction  over imported
products. The EC Commission charged that EC producers did not
have the same possibilities for defending themselves before the
ITC as they would have in a normal U.S. Court.
    "Consequently the procedure followed...Is less favourable
than that which takes places in normal courts of law for goods
produced in the United States," it said in a statement.
 Reuter
