ONLY one of the eight companies involved in sweater anti-dumping investigations in the United States has responded to the surprise second round of questionnaires.
Pettit and Martin partner Simon Luk, who has been advising some of the companies, said Hayward Knitters has been given an extension to next Tuesday to file its response.
He believes the rest have ignored the questionnaires on the assumption they will be overturned by the US court.
The second round of questionnaires, announced in May, stunned the sweater makers because it effectively went against a US landmark decision on anti-dumping, which was awarded in favour of Hongkong last November.
In what was hailed as a major victory, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) reversed its earlier ruling that the territory had hurt American sweater manufacturers by dumping cut-rate products in the US.
It was hoped that ruling, which came after a time-consuming and costly battle backed by the Hongkong Government, would clear the way for an end to the bitter three-year dispute which led to anti-dumping tariffs against Hongkong and other Asian sweater exporters.
But the Americans showed they were determined to carry on the investigations in the face of this ruling with the release in May of a second round of questionnaires to the eight firms covering the period from September 1991 to August 1992.