BENTON HARBOR – Samsung and LG, two South Korean manufacturers of clothes washers, have been found guilty of dumping their products in the United States at prices below production costs to steal business from Whirlpool Corp.

A preliminary antidumping ruling was issued Thursday by the U.S. Department of Commerce confirming Whirlpool’s allegations against Samsung and LG.

As a result of today’s DOC ruling, Samsung and LG will be required to pay cash deposits on clothes washers imported into the United States from their production facilities in China. The cash deposit rate for Samsung is 111.09 percent, and the rate for LG is 49.88 percent. The DOC also decided to apply Samsung’s dumping rate retroactively 90 days to remedy its recent efforts to stockpile washers and undermine the effectiveness of the ruling.

“Today’s ruling is an important step forward in an effort to stop serial dumping practices by Samsung and LG and uphold free and fair trade practices,” said Marc Bitzer, president and chief operating officer for Whirlpool Corp. “At Whirlpool, we know that open, rules-based trade ensures the highest level of innovation and choice for consumers.”

Today’s DOC ruling is in response to a petition filed by Whirlpool Corp. in December 2015. The petition outlines a long-term, repeated pattern of pricing below cost by Samsung and LG – a practice that is injuring American washer manufacturers and threatening American manufacturing jobs.

In 2013, the U.S. government also found that Samsung and LG were dumping large residential clothes washers exported to the United States from their production facilities in South Korea and Mexico. Following that ruling, Samsung and LG moved their washer production for the United States to China, skirting the order and continuing to dump into the United States.

Enforcing trade rules will help level the playing field for U.S. appliance manufacturers, Whirlpool said in a press release. This includes Whirlpool Corp.’s 22,000 employees across the United States – which encompass 15,000 manufacturing workers located in nine plants across the country, including Benton Harbor.