The European Union imposed tariffs against the U.S. on a chemical used in paints and paper coatings to curb competition for Ineos Oxide Ltd. and Wacker Chemie AG. (WCH)
The duties as high as 13.8 percent punish U.S. exporters including Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) for allegedly selling vinyl acetate in the EU below cost, a practice known as dumping. Vinyl acetate is also used in such goods as safety glass and glues for furniture and floors.

The U.K.’s Ineos Oxide and Munich-based Wacker suffered “material injury” as a result of dumped imports from the U.S., the European Commission, the 27-nation EU’s trade authority in Brussels, said today in the Official Journal. The levies, due to take effect tomorrow, are for six months and may be prolonged for five years.

U.S. exporters including Dow Chemical, LyondellBasell Acetyls LLC and Celanese Ltd. expanded their combined share of the EU market for vinyl acetate by 49 percent in the 12 months through September 2010 compared with 2007, according to the commission. EU imports from the U.S. grew to 152,445 metric tons from 103,192 tons over the period, said the commission, which indexed the numbers on total European consumption of vinyl acetate to protect confidential business data.

The anti-dumping duties amount to 12.1 percent against Celanese, 13 percent against LyondellBasell Acetyls and 13.8 percent against Dow Chemical and any other U.S. vinyl-acetate exporters.

The levies are the preliminary outcome of an inquiry that the commission opened in December after a dumping complaint by Ineos Oxide, which accounts for more than a quarter of the EU’s production of vinyl acetate. Wacker supported the case, the commission said today.

EU governments, acting on a proposal from the commission, must decide within six months whether to turn the provisional anti-dumping duties into “definitive” levies lasting for five years. The rates for definitive duties can change.