In response to an application from JCB, the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) opened an investigation in November 2023 into allegations that Chinese exporters were able to use reduced production costs to price their exports below UK competitors.
Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has now accepted the TRA recommendation that measures should be imposed on imports of excavators from China weighing 11 tonnes or more, but less than 80 tonnes, as the TRA found that there is no UK industry for the production of excavators weighing 80 tonnes or above.
The anti-dumping duties range from 18.81% for a sampled exporter to 40.08% for the residual rate; while the countervailing duties range from 0–2.98%. The TRA has estimated that the measures could benefit UK excavator producers by up to £26 million per year.
Anti-dumping duties allow a country to act against goods which are being sold at less than their normal value — this is defined as the price for “like goods” sold in the exporter’s home market. Countervailing duties are designed to counteract government subsidies that cause material injury to domestic industries.
In February 2025, Caterpillar (Xuzhou) Ltd (CXL) launched a judicial review against the TRA and the Department of Business and Trade’s decision to impose provisional anti-dumping measures on the above products.
The judge in the case concluded that the TRA, in its decisions surrounding the provisional anti-dumping measures, had acted lawfully, rationally and in a procedurally fair manner.
The full judgment can be found at https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/caterpillar-xuzhou-v-secretary-of-state-for-business-and-trade
