Hynix Semiconductor Inc. said Thursday that the United States has decided to end punitive duties imposed on the company in 2003, a move the South Korean company says will help put it back in the black.

Hynix, the world’s second-largest manufacturer of computer memory chips, said in a statement that the office of Commerce released a letter notifying the U.S. universal Trade Commission that it planned to revoke the duties no later than 90 days after July 1.

Park Seong-ae, a Hynix spokeswoman, said the company’s attorney received a copy of the letter by fax from the area of Commerce.

The letter, dated Tuesday, said the decision to revoke the duties came considering there was no “substantive response” from U.S. parties during a review of the tariffs.

Hynix furnished a copy of the letter to The Associated Press. The U.S. Embassy in Seoul was checking its validity.

Hynix said it expects that the “actual effect of the revocation

will come into force retroactively” from Aug. 11, which marks five years since the duties were imposed.

The United States, the European Union and Japan all slapped countervailing duties on Hynix dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips by what they alleged was unfair South Korean government support for the company when it twice nearly collapsed twice under mountains of debt in 2001 and 2002.

South Korea fought the tariffs at the World Trade Organization with mixed success. The WTO said that some of Seoul’s financial support for Hynix was indeed illegal.

The global body upheld Washington’s 44.71 percent tariffs, but called for the EU and Japan to recalculate theirs.

The EU, which plus slapped its tariffs on Hynix in 2003, said in April it was repealing its duties of more than 30 percent effective at the end of last year.

An arbitrator for the WTO said in May that Japan has…

Original post by dhiram