Trade Policy and Pressure Politics: Fax Machines

Before preparation and submission in December 1996 of a complaint on dumping of “personal or consumer faxes” from Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, lobby groups, lead by Japanese governmental institutions and industrial associations, almost succeeded in preventing the opening of a dumping investigation. Their zeal in the political arena was greater than their inclination to cooperation in a proceeding. The story on consumer faxes describes a struggle only partly in a legal arena. Member states gave priority to the purchasing interests of their telecom companies over industrial interests and appeared able to reduce the period of applicability of measures from five to six years. In addition, a European Commission official succeeded in forcing the complainant to reduce the scope of the product for which measures would be applied to technologies that had the least impact on the lobbying exporter. The threat was that the official would fail to collaborate if the complainant did not adjust the product and exclude the printing technologies that were important for the future. Lobbying by the Japanese made customers insecure, because the Japanese alleged that the case would not be opened and when it was opened they declared that measures would not be taken, but customers did not take the risk. The complainant finally disappeared by some coincidences.