Commerce Legally Used Turkish Lira to Value Home Market Sales, Trade Court Rules

The Commerce Department properly used the Turkish lira to value exporter Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi's home-market sales as part of the 2018-19 review of the antidumping duty order on cold-rolled steel flat products from Turkey, the Court of International Trade ruled in a Sept. 14 opinion. Judge M. Miller Baker said Commerce's use of the lira didn't violate its past practice or the established reasons underlying this practice.

Habas advanced two theories at the trade court: Commerce's decision is "arbitrary and unreasonable given its history of preferring the transaction currency," and the valuation of the home-market sales in lira "creates a mischaracterization of the sale price that distorts the margin."

The agency's practice is to use the currency of a respondent's sale price derived from the currency that controls the "ultimate amount a purchaser pays for the sale," and Commerce violated this practice by using the lira, Habas said. The exporter claimed its home-market sales were "negotiated, confirmed, and paid in U.S. Dollars," and as such, clear the agency's criteria of measuring the sales in dollars where the price was fixed in dollars at the time of invoicing and the dollar price controlled the ultimate amount paid for the sale.

Baker noted that Commerce only would have violated its practice "if Habas's home-market sales were negotiated in dollars and the dollar price ultimately controlled the amount paid." While Habas gave evidence that the prices were negotiated and set in dollars at the invoice date, the agency said that "Habas did not show that those prices ultimately controlled the final payment." Since the agency couldn't assign a dollar value to each payment received, it couldn't reconcile each payment with the dollar value on its corresponding invoice, Baker said.

As for the distortion claim, Baker said this is only an issue so long as a sale price is converted into the home-market currency then back to U.S. dollars at the date of the U.S. sale. As this wasn't the case here, Habas' argument doesn't apply, the court ruled.

(Habas Sinai ve Tibbi Gazlar Istihsal Endustrisi v. United States, Slip Op. 23-133, CiT #21-00527, dated 09/14/23, Judge M. Miller Baker. Attorneys: Matthew Nolan of ArentFox Schiff for plaintiff Habas; Brian Boynton for defendant U.S. government; Stephen Vaughn of King & Spalding for defendant-intervenor Cleveland-Cliffs; Roger Schagrin of Schagrin Associates for defendant-intervenors Steel Dynamics and SSAB Enterprises)