The Ministry of Economy enacted new petitioning criteria for investigations of the use of subsidies by foreign countries and the imposition of countervailing measures on subsidized imports, following the establishment of a new regulatory framework in 2021.
Following the Federal Government’s renewal of its regulatory framework on the investigation of the use of subsidies by foreign countries and the imposition of countervailing measures on subsidized imports (Decree n.º 10.839/2021, reported in the 29th edition of the Regulatory Report), the Foreign Trade Secretariat (SECEX) at the Ministry of Economy, through Ordinance n.º 172/2022, enacted new petitioning criteria under that framework, in line with the WTO’s Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures. It replaced SECEX Circular n.º 20/1996.
The new petitioning criteria apply not only to those seeking the investigation of the use of recurrent and non-recurrent subsidies by foreign countries, but also to those seeking the revision or restitution of any established duty, and to those seeking to assess the efficacy of a given countervailing measure. According to the Ministry of Economy, the new ordinance is designed to provide a complete step-by-step guide on the mechanisms of anti-subsidies petitioning, structured in a similar way to anti-dumping investigations.
The new ordinance provided the methodology for assessing the scope of existing subsidies and subsequently applying countervailing duties in chapter “II” (articles 11 to 121); the criteria applied to petitions for original investigations in chapter “III” (art. 122 to 230), and the criteria for the different types of revisions of duties in chapters “IV” to “VIII” (art. 231 to 380).
It also provided the criteria for petitions to assess the scope to which a given product is subject to countervailing duties (chapter “IX”, art. 381 to 394), and the criteria applied to petitions for redetermination, if the efficacy of a countervailing duty is compromised (chapter “X”, art. 395 to 410). Rules related to commitment proposals were provided in chapter “XI” (art. 411 to 432).
