How to submit notifications of countervailing duty actions

GENERAL

The Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM Agreement) contains numerous notification obligations that must be fulfilled by WTO Members conducting countervailing duty (anti-subsidy) investigations and applying countervailing measures.

As a rule, all notifications under WTO agreements should be prepared as separate documents and submitted by WTO Members to the WTO Central Registry of Notifications (CRN) via email. Please note that notifications of semi-annual reports submitted to CRN must be in WORD format only.

NOTIFICATION PORTAL

In 2022, the WTO Secretariat launched the Countervailing Notification Portal, which is intended to streamline the notification process and make it easier for Members to notify countervailing duty actions.

As such, the Countervailing Notification Portal permits Members to:

Create new records for original investigations and enter the relevant data,
Update investigation records with new information resulting from preliminary and final determinations,
Update information on measures adopted (extended, amended, terminated) on the basis of reviews / other subsequent proceedings covering a specific period.

Using the information entered by Members, the Countervailing Notification Portal automatically generates semi-annual reports to be sent to CRN. As soon as these reports are officially circulated, the Portal directly feeds the relevant data into the statistical database of countervailing duty actions maintained by the WTO Secretariat, which is available at the Trade Remedy Public Portal.

Please note that the Countervailing Notification Portal only facilitates the preparation and submission of certain notifications envisaged by Article 25.11 of the SCM Agreement. As such, the Portal can be used to prepare and submit semi-annual reports of countervailing duty actions, including NIL reports.

The Countervailing Notification Portal cannot be used for the preparation and submission of other notifications under the SCM Agreement, such as biennial notifications of subsidy programmes (Article 25.1), ad hoc notifications of preliminary and final countervailing duty actions taken (Article 25.11)¹, existing laws and regulations with respect to countervailing measures (Article 32.6)², notifications of competent authorities (Article 25.12)³, one-time notifications by Members that have not established investigating authorities, and never taken any countervailing duty actions (Articles 25.11 and 25.12)⁴, etc. These notifications must follow the standard procedure and should be sent by WTO Members directly to the CRN. If you need any assistance regarding the notifications not covered by this portal, please contact the Secretariat at cvnotification@wto.org.

There is no obligation to use the Countervailing Notification Portal to notify countervailing duty actions – it is an additional tool put at Members' disposal to assist them in the preparation of complex notifications with minimal effort. In addition, information collected through the Countervailing Notification Portal helps to increase the accuracy of statistical data on trade remedy actions maintained by the WTO Secretariat. However, WTO Member governments are free to submit semi-annual reports of countervailing duty actions directly to the CRN without using the Portal.

HOW TO USE

Relevant government authorities of WTO Members wishing to use the Countervailing Notification Portal should designate authorized persons and contact the WTO Secretariat to register them on the platform. For any such inquiry, please contact the Secretariat at cvnotification@wto.org.

Detailed instructions on notifying countervailing duty actions via the Countervailing Notification Portal are available to registered users.

For an outline of all the notification requirements under the SCM Agreement, please refer to the WTO Notifications Portal.

Click here for more information on the required formats and periodicity for notifications.

For any further questions or assistance regarding notifications on countervailing duty actions, please contact the WTO Secretariat at cvnotification@wto.org

¹ Can be submitted in PDF or WORD format.
² Should be submitted ONLY in WORD format.
³ Should be submitted ONLY in WORD format.
⁴ Should be submitted ONLY in WORD format.