Saint John, NB – Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) issued its preliminary decision to impose countervailing duties on Canadian imports of supercalendered paper. 

The Coalition for Fair Paper Imports — U.S.-based Madison Paper and Verso Corporation — petitioned the DOC in February 2015 and asked it to impose countervailing duties on imports of supercalendered paper from Canadian paper producers Port Hawkesbury Paper, as well as Resolute Forest Products, Irving Paper and Catalyst Paper.  The Coalition alleges that Canadian supercalendered paper producers are subsidized by the Canadian federal and provincial governments.  Supercalendered paper is glossy paper used in retail catalogues, flyers and magazines. 

“Irving Paper Limited will be seeking an expedited review by DOC of our business and we are confident that once this thorough review is complete no CVD rate will be imposed on our US imports,” said Mark Mosher, Vice President of Irving Paper.   “We continue to work with the Provincial and the Federal governments and are focused on an expedited review of our case by the DOC.”  

In its investigation, the DOC refused to examine each paper company individually. Irving Paper had asked the DOC to conduct an investigation of our business but DOC declined. The U.S. agency examined Port Hawkesbury Paper and Resolute Forest Products, and assigned each company a rate of 20.33% and 2.04% respectively, but did not investigate Catalyst Paper or Irving Paper. Instead, the DOC assigned Catalyst and Irving an “all-others rate” of 11.19%, which is equal to the average of the rates that the DOC assigned to the other two companies.

The decision issued today is only a Preliminary Determination by the DOC of the duty. The Final Determination of the duty will be rendered on October 13, 2015, and its Final Order in early December 2015.

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CONTACT:  Mary Keith
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