CIT Upholds Commerce's Results of AD Review of Light-Walled Pipe From China

The Court of International Trade on April 11 upheld the Commerce Department's final results of its 2019-2020 antidumping duty administrative review on light-walled rectangular pipe and tube from China, in the face of challenges to Commerce’s surrogate value selection raised by Hangzhou Ailong Metal Products.

The court distilled the issues raised by Ailong to a single question: whether Commerce’s determination to use Malaysian data to value raw steel tube was supported by substantial evidence. Judge Mark Barnett said that the court did not need to address whether the information Commerce used was the best available, only whether a reasonable mind could conclude that Commerce made a correct selection.

Barnett disagreed with Ailong's argument that because the factors of production of subject merchandise include raw materials, those necessarily cannot be materials that themselves would be subject to the antidumping duty order (see 2208230034). "Nothing about the statutory language leads the court to find that the 'raw materials' ... cannot be intermediate merchandise that also falls within the scope," Barnett said in his opinion.

The court found that "there is no reason to believe that the Malaysian data is not representative of the raw square tube used by Plaintiff to manufacture the subject merchandise" despite Ailong's argument to the contrary.

The court also found that the "double counting" alleged in the use of the Malaysian surrogate data was irrelevant, saying that the issue was whether Commerce acted within its discretion in selecting an "imperfect data set" as the best available information. "Despite the deficiency in the Malaysian data, Commerce’s selection is supported by substantial evidence," Barnett said. "Although Commerce’s explanation is not as thorough as it could be, the court can discern the agency’s path of reasoning." The court concluded that Commerce reasonably determined that the possibility of “double counting” would not be as distortive as would use of the Russian surrogate data submitted by Ailong in the calculation of normal values.

(Hangzhou Ailong Metal Products v. U.S., Slip Op. 23-50, CIT # 22-00116; Judge: Mark Barnett; Attorneys: Daniel J. Cannistra of Crowell & Moring for plaintiff Hangzhou Ailong Metal Products; Kristin E. Olson for defendant U.S. government; Alan H. Price of Wiley Rein for defendant-intervenor Nucor Tubular Products)