The impact of US-imposed anti-dumping duties on Portugal-based paper manufacturer Navigator is set to be less dramatic than predicted.

While the company will still be impacted by the duties, the United States Department of Commerce (DoC) has lowered the amount that the company has to pay, from 37.34% of sales to 1.75% for the period from August 2015 to February 2017. 

Following a preliminary assessment, the DoC had informed Navigator in March this year that the anti-dumping duty to be applied would be 0%, before settling on the 37.74% figure in August. Navigator immediately reacted against this decision, leading to a re-examination of the figures by the DoC. This has now resulted in the new final rate of 1.75% which is expected to be applied shortly.

Navigator had expected the higher rate to have a negative impact of €66 million ($76 million) on EBITDA and €45 million on net profit for the current financial year. It has now revised these estimations downwards to -€3 million and -€2 million respectively.

In addition, Navigator is taking steps to recover around €22 million, representing the difference between sums deposited during the period to February 2017 and the revised amount of duty owed.