Ruling by U.S. Panel Favors Cray

A government laboratory’s plans to buy a Japanese supercomputer could harm Cray Research Inc., the chief U.S. manufacturer of the high-speed equipment, a federal commission decided Wednesday.

The 3-1 decision by the International Trade Commission allows the Commerce Department to proceed with an anti-dumping case against Japan’s NEC Corp., which won a bid this spring to supply supercomputers to a Colorado-based climate laboratory.

Cray, based in Eagan, Minn., claims that NEC offered four of the computers for the cost of one to get a foothold in the U.S. market. NEC denies that the equipment was priced at below cost and had asked the ITC to drop the dumping case.

The Commerce Department is to issue a decision by Jan. 6. The department could impose stiff tariffs on the Japanese supercomputers if it concludes that the computers were priced too low.