 EC SAYS U.S. BROKE TRADE RULES IN AKZO-DUPONT ROW

  The European Community Commission has
  charged the United States with breaking international trade
  rules by excluding Dutch-made fibres from the U.S. Market and
  said it would take the issue to the world trade body GATT.
      In the latest of a series of trade disputes with
  Washington, the executive authority alleged that a section of
  the U.S. Tariff Act was incompatible with the GATT (General
  Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) because it discriminated
  against imported products in favour of domestically-produced
  goods.
      The Commission said it would ask Geneva-based GATT to rule
  on whether the section in question, which officials said had
  proved a barrier to many EC exporters, conformed to its rules.
      Commission officials did not rule out retaliatory measures
  if, after a GATT decision against it, Washington failed to
  bring the disputed section into line with international rules.
      The executive's decision to go to GATT follows a complaint
  to it by the Dutch company Akzo &lt;AKZO.AS>, whose "aramid"
  synthetic fibres have been banned from the U.S. Market because
  of charges by the U.S. Firm &lt;Dupont> that the fibres violate
  the American company's patents.
      Akzo alleged that the ban, imposed by the U.S.
  International Trade Commission (ITC), was discriminatory and
  incompatible with GATT provisions.
      The dispute centres on the fact that section 337 of the
  U.S. Tariff Act gives the ITC jurisdiction  over imported
  products. The EC Commission charged that EC producers did not
  have the same possibilities for defending themselves before the
  ITC as they would have in a normal U.S. Court.
      "Consequently the procedure followed...Is less favourable
  than that which takes places in normal courts of law for goods
  produced in the United States," it said in a statement.
  

