Brussels, 25/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - The Council of the EU on Monday adopted a regulation instituting additional customs duties on imports of certain products from the USA for Washington's failure to respect WTO rules, a press release indicates. An additional duty of 15% will be imposed from 1 May on certain agricultural, textile, fittings and paper products until such time as the Americans cease to apply the Continued Dumping and Subsidy Offset Act or “Byrd Amendment”. This law was declared illegal by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body in January 2003 and was due to be withdrawn by 27 December 2003 at the latest. As a result of this law, which provides for annual payments of antidumping and compensation duties to American producers, since 2000 more than 1 billion US dollars have been collected on products imported in to the USA and redistributed to the benefit of competing US products. The main beneficiaries: the ball-bearings, steel and other metals, domestic appliance and foodstuffs (particularly pasta) sectors. The WTO has established that the level of reduction of advantage suffered by the EU corresponds annually to 72% of the payments made in the most recent distribution from antidumping or compensation duties levied on imports originating in the Community. EUROPE will come back to this issue.