All the major parties – both the respondents and the petitioner – have now filed their own lawsuits in the U.S. Court of International Trade over the U.S. Department of Commerce’s imposition of countervailing duties (CVD) on imports of phosphates from Morocco and Russia, including Morocco’s OCP SA and Russia’s PhosAgro and EuroChem, and as previously reported, The Mosaic Co. (GM May 14, p. 1).
DOC calculated subsidy margins and corresponding duty rates of 47.05 percent on EuroChem and 9.19 percent on PhosAgro and 17.2 percent for other Russian producers. DOC imposed a rate of 19.97 on phosphates from Morocco’s OCP SA.
The three companies maintain that DOC miscalculated the duties, with the two Russian companies denying that their industries are subsidized, particularly with regard to the purchase of natural gas.
PhosAgro Deputy CEO Alexander Sharabaiko told Tass that it disagrees with the DOC decision because the company does not receive any subsidies. “We contest the existence of the subsidy at large because we do not have any,” he was quoted. “We purchase all the raw material positions under market conditions that exist in our country.” He expects the court to rule on the matter in April-May 2022.
While the respondents argue that the CVD should not exist or were too high, Mosaic argues that the CVD duties imposed by DOC were not high enough.