The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Oct. 28 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
The Commerce Department should continue to apply retroactive suspension of liquidation to all non-individually examined respondents in its antidumping duty investigation on pentafluoroethane (R-125) from China, even though the agency found a mandatory respondent’s selling behavior did not warrant critical circumstances because of a seasonal sales pattern, Honeywell International, petitioner in the case, said in a brief filed Oct. 26.
The Commerce Department's failure to calculate a dumping margin for antidumping review participant Chandan Steel Ltd. and instead base the rate on adverse facts available runs contrary to the law, Chandan argued in an Oct. 23 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The exporter is challenging the final results of the first administrative review of the antidumping duty order on stainless steel flanges from India, covering 2018-19 entries. Chandan said it has standing as a "party to the underlying proceeding," and that the final results should be remanded so Commerce can give Chandan a rate based on its own information (Chandan Steel Limited v. United States, CIT #21-00540).
Solar cell exporter Shanghai JA Solar Technology Co., along with JA Solar Technology Yangzhou Co. and JingAo Solar Co., kicked off their challenge to the final results of the seventh administrative review of the countervailing duty order on crystaline silicone photovoltaic cells from China in an Oct. 27 complaint at the Court of International Trade. JA Solar received the all-others CVD rate, which totaled 19.28%. The companies are challenging the Commerce Department's reliance on adverse facts available related to China's Export Buyer's Credit Program due to Commerce's failure to verify non-use of the program by the respondents' U.S. customers (Shanghai JA Solar Technology Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00548).
The Commerce Department's simple average of the de minimis and the adverse facts available China-wide rates to derive the all-others rate in an antidumping case did not reasonably reflect the potential dumping margin of the separate rate respondents, PrimeSource Building Products argued in an Oct. 18 reply brief at the Court of International Trade. The AFA negates the presumption that mandatory respondents' rates reflect the separate rate respondents, and prior reviews show that cooperating separate respondents' rates are lower than firms subject to AFA, the brief argued (PrimeSource Building Products, Inc., et al. v. United States, CIT Consol. #20-03911).
The Commerce Department properly applied adverse facts available when weighing antidumping respondent Bosun Tool's country of origin information using a first-in, first-out (FIFO) methodology, the Court of International Trade said in an Oct. 27 opinion. Judge Claire Kelly found that although Bosun cooperated to the best of its ability with the AD review, the use of AFA was warranted because an exporter is reasonably expected to keep documents that properly document country of origin -- something that the FIFO methodology does not do.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices Oct. 27 on AD/CV duty proceedings:
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The Court of International Trade sustained on Oct. 27 the Commerce Department's second remand results in a case over the sixth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on diamond sawblades and parts thereof from China. Judge Claire Kelly upheld Commerce's use of adverse facts available when weighing respondent Bosun Tool's country of origin information using a first-in, first-out methodology, despite Bosun's full cooperation. Kelly also rejected Bosun's argument that if AFA were to be applied, the scope of its application should be limited to the missing country of origin information for the FIFO sales, holding instead that Commerce reasonably found that, without reliable country of origin information, the agency could not accurately pair price data in the U.S. sales database with the correct country of origin.
Anonymous solar producers still have yet to justify their requests for anti-circumvention inquiries on solar cells from Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, so the Commerce Department should decline to initiate the inquiries altogether, said NextEra and Florida Power & Light in their Oct. 25 response to additional information submitted by the producers nearly two weeks prior.