South Korean petrochemicals producer Kumho Petrochemical said Monday it has filed a lawsuit against the US government over the high anti-dumping duties imposed on the company.

In July this year, the US Department of Commerce placed anti-dumping duties of 44.3 percent on emulsion styrene butadiene rubber manufactured by Kumho Petrochemical and 9.66 percent on the products by LG Chem and other companies.

The US International Trade Commission then ruled that imports of Korean ESBR hurt the domestic manufacturers, giving the go-ahead for the imposition.

In response, Kumho Petrochemical last month filed the lawsuit against the US Court of International Trade, claiming that the measures taken by the US government are unfair.

“The company‘s ESBR shipments to the US only accounts for some one percent of the company’s annual sales, meaning that the high anti-dumping duties will not hurt the company‘s earnings,” the petrochemicals firm’s officials said. “However, the company decided to file a lawsuit anyway as the US government‘s measures were found unfair,” the officials added.

The CIT’s decision on the case is forecast to come out in August next year, according to the industry sources.

Other than Kumho Petrochemical, Posco, Hyundai Steel, Nexteel and Hyundai Heavy Industries also earlier this year lodged separate lawsuits with the CIT over the impositions of anti-dumping tariffs on their products, attempts to counter Washington‘s protectionist approach. 

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)