On 16 January 2003, the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that the the american law known as "Byrd amendment" (Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act or “CDSOA”), approved on 2000, is inconsistent with the rules of the Organization. This law established the possibility for the US government to redistribute collected antidumping and countervailing duties to those US companies that were damaged by these practices. After the refusal, for a long time (the law has now been repealed, with effect from october 2007) of the US to repeal or amend this law, The European Union was authorized by the WTO to apply retaliatory measures against the USA on certain products of American origin. Accordingly, the EU has adopted the EC Regulation No 673/2005 of the Council of 25 April 2005, that introduces an additional ad valorem customs duty of 15% on imports of certain products priginating in the US, starting from the 1° May 2005 and listed in the Annex I of the Regulation. This list is yearly updated by the EU Commission. The new list is annexed to the Commission implementing Regulation (EU) No 311/2011 of 31 March 2011, that now reduces this goods to only 3 products.
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