La Doria, one of the Italian exporters allegedly found to be dumping canned tomato products in Australia, has said it will contest a call by the Australian Anti Dumping Commission for dumping duties to be imposed on it.
La Doria and Feger were accused by SPC Ardmona of dumping product into Australia. Earlier this year the commission launched a probe into whether products were exported at less than the normal value of the lines and had caused "material injury" to local manufacturers.
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SPC's claims were the company's latest on the issue. Last year, following an investigation looking at shipments from July 2012 to June 2013, the Anti-Dumping Commission found 103 Italian companies were illegally dumping products in the country. Those exporters are now paying dumping duties. SPC turned to the Commission again, claiming La Doria and Feger had "escaped duties during the first investigation".
In its report, published on Friday (4 September), the Commission said: "The Commissioner is satisfied that there appears to be sufficient grounds to publish a dumping duty notice regarding prepared or preserved tomatoes exported to Australia from Italy by Feger and La Doria."
In an email to just-food a spokesperson for La Doria called the contents of the new inquiry: "completely groundless".
"As a result of the verification visit at La Doria premises, the ADC found that the goods exported to Australia were NOT dumped and stated said conclusions in an official report.
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By GlobalData"Notwithstanding, on 4 September, the ADC issued the “Statement of Essential Facts” (“SEF”). Pursuant to said document, retracting its previous assumptions, the Commission found a preliminary dumping margin equal to 5.1% relating to La Doria S.p.A. (and equal to 7.5% to the other company)."
La Doria and Feger have 20 days to reply to the SEF before the final report is presented to the parliamentary secretary.
"According to the SEF – the dumping margin does not derive from the comparison between the domestic and export sales but from alleged "subsidies" granted to Italian tomato growers. Thus, ADC replaced the cost of raw tomatoes by increasing it for an amount equal to the value of the assumed "subsidies". Only in light of this incorrect calculation they were able to found a positive margin," said the spokesperson.
"Obviously, we are preparing a reply contesting all the faults and the falsehoods contained in the documents and we are acting jointly with the European and Italian Institutions who are fully supporting us. It is worth noting that since 2011 "subsidies" for tomatoes have been fully decoupled."
