Buchanan Announces New Trade Investigation into Imports of Unfairly Priced Vanillin from The People’s Republic of China

WASHINGTON (June 2024) - On June 5, 2024, Solvay USA, LLC (Solvay), part of the Syensqo group, filed petitions to counter unfair imports that are injuring the American vanillin industry. Solvay filed the petitions with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) following years of significant volumes of unfairly priced imports of Chinese vanillin products. The petitions allege that the Chinese industry is dumping vanillin in the United States, distorting the U.S. market and resulting in a significant loss of American jobs.  The petitions further allege that the Chinese industry is receiving unfair subsidies which further injure the domestic industry.

“The Chinese industry’s use of unfair pricing is harming American companies and workers,” said Daniel B. Pickard, International Trade and National Security practice group leader at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney and lead counsel for Solvay. “The domestic industry is committed to opposing these unfair trade practices and ensuring that American manufacturing is able to compete on a level playing field. Foreign countries and producers that fail to abide by international trade rules must be held accountable. Trade remedy measures that we hope result from the petitions filed today seek to do just that.”

Antidumping duties aim to offset the amount a product is sold at less than fair value, or “dumped,” in the United States. The dumping margin is calculated by the Department of Commerce. Estimated duties in the amount of the dumping are collected from importers at the time of importation. Countervailing duties are intended to offset unfair subsidies that a foreign government provides in the production of a particular good. The ITC, an independent agency, determines whether the domestic industry is materially injured or threatened with material injury as a result of the unfairly traded imports.

The Department of Commerce will determine whether to initiate the investigations within 20 days of the filing, and the ITC will reach a preliminary determination of material injury or threat of material injury within 45 days. The entire investigative process will take approximately one year, with final determinations of dumping, subsidization, and injury likely occurring in mid-2025. Duties can, however, attach to imports of the subject vanillin as of the time of the preliminary determinations in the case.

Led by Pickard, the Buchanan team also includes Claire Webster, Amanda Wetzel, Grace Welborn, Caroline Bisk, Natan Tubman, and Milton Koch.