George Peretz QC – Tax Journal – Trade remedies: the WTO framework

11 Sep 2020 By George Peretz KC

Under the WTO framework (within which the new UK regime will operate post-Brexit), there are broadly three types of trade remedies: anti-dumping duties (on exported products where the export price to the importing country is less than its normal value); ‘countervailing measures’ (to deal with subsidies); and ‘safeguarding measures’ (to deal, essentially, with sudden floods of exports). A subsidy against which countervailing measures could be imposed is a financial contribution (or income or price support) that confers a benefit, and would therefore extend to tax credits and, for example, a low rate of corporation tax confined to a particular region or sector. Trade remedy decisions are open to challenge by way of judicial review or where the exporting member state brings a dispute before the WTO’s dispute resolution mechanism (although the mechanism for doing so has run into serious difficulties in recent years).

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