Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and Ministry of Finance (MOF) launched an investigation Jan 30, 2008, to correct countervailing duty imposed on imports from Hynix Semiconductor Inc of Korea in line with the advisory from World Trade Organization (WTO).
 
Japan has imposed a 27.2% countervailing duty on Hynix DRAMs since January 2006, claiming that the company exports its DRAMs to Japan at unfairly low prices with subsidies from the Korean government. The company appealed to WTO against the levy.

In the ruling on Dec 17, 2007, WTO admitted the involvement of the Korean government, but suggested that the Japanese government should correct the countervailing duty because Japan failed to prove the relevance between Hynix's profit and the government support.
On Jan 15, 2008, the Japanese government notified WTO of its intentions to correct the duty and launched the investigation based on the Customs Tariff Law on Jan 30, 2008. Although a maximum period of one year has been set for the investigation, the deadline may be brought forward depending on the result of negotiations between Korea and Japan.

Upon the completion of investigation, the duty rate is corrected or the duty is eliminated on the same day in accordance with the outcome of investigation. The duty on Hynix DRAM will be drastically changed by Jan 30, 2009, at the latest.