Many of these orders could be weeded out under the World Trade Organisation's so-called sunset rules, which limit them to five years unless removing them would result in further dumping or injury to domestic producers.

But US unions are certain to fight hard to keep the cases against Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese colour television sets in place, even though technically many of these products are no longer being dumped. Likewise with US steel producers, which have an interest in almost half of the cases scheduled for review.

"The orders are there to prevent continued or renewed dumping, so you can assume that the US industry won't go away quietly," says Michael Stein, a lawyer for some of the largest US flat-rolled steel producers.

`The reviews are certain to reignite the battleover the utility of anti- dumping procedures in the US. Domestic industries regard them as a legitimate defense against unfair trade. The US defines dumping as sales of imported goods at less than their home-market values or production costs.

Dumped goods can be subject to antidumping duties designed to level the playing field with domestic products. Many importers, for their part, consider such duties to be nothing more than thinly disguised protectionism.

Gary Horlick, a lawyer for the importing community, warns that unless the US throws out at least two-thirds of these cases it will be branded as an "outlier" by its trading partners and subject to potential retribution.

Terence Stewart, a Washington lawyer who has brought numerous antidumping cases to the US commerce department, predicts that industry petitioners will have a "high success rate" in arguing for the retention of orders. However, other trade lawyers are less certain how contested cases will be decided.

An order stays in the booksonly if the commerce department issues an affirmative determination and the US International Trade Commission subsequently rules that revocation would cause injury to domestic producers.

It is in the making of these judgment calls where much of the mystery in this process lies. Some importers worry that it will be difficult to convince the Commerce Department that they are no longer a dumping threat.

Starting this month the US commerce department will seek comments on the disposition of these case. Those that draw no response are candidates for revocation. There are a number of cases dating back to two decades or more than may fall into this category.

For instance, there may no longer be any serious domestic interest in maintaining a 26-year old order against large power transformers from Japan.

Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the original petitioner, later sold its transformer-manufacturing facilities in Muncie, Indiana, to the Swedish-Swiss firm Asea Brown Boveri Ltd. Last year ABB announcedthat it will close the Muncie facility because of "insurmountable" losses. There is one other US producer of large transformers but it hasn't been active in this case, according to ABB's lawyers.

The survival of another venerable antidumping order against Japanese bicycle speedometers is also in doubt. The U.S. producer that petitioned for relief, Stewart Warner Corporation, was acquired by a European conglomerate and has stopped making bike speedometers. Eugene Stewart, who brought the case to the US commerce department, has since passed on the management of his Washington law firm to his son, Terence. The younger Stewart says the firm no longer has an interest in the case.

Under the department's guidelines, a fall-off of imports covered by an antidumping order is no guarantee that the order will be revoked. "If imports cease after the order is issued, it is reasonable to assume that the exporters couldn't sell in the U.S. without dumping and that, to re-enter the US market, they would have to resumedumping," according to these guidelines.

If the case is handed over to the ITC for an injury determination, the Commission will have to peer into the future and estimate the impact of revocation on the well-being of an industry, along with other contributing factors. "We'd be entering a brave new world" of trade jurisprudence, says Paul Rosenthal, another lawyer representing domestic manufacturers. One Korean company, Samsung Electronics Corporation, is chagrined to find its color television set case in the sunset review schedule.

Samsung has been trying unsuccessfully to free itself through another Commerce Department procedure called a "changed circumstance" review. The Korean producer claims that it should no longer be subject to the order because it has stopped shipping TV sets directly to the US and is supplying its U.S. customers from Mexico. "If we are successful there we wouldn't need a sunset review, but now we're facing the prospect of starting all over again," rues Warren Connelly, Samsung'strade counsel.