Statute Requires ITC to Reconsider Injury Determinations in Sunset Reviews, Exporter Says

The International Trade Comission is required by law to reconsider its original 2016 injury and negligibility determinations in a 2021 sunset review of an antidumping duty order on Turkish hot-rolled steel, an exporter argued Dec. 21 (Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari v. U.S. International Trade Commission, CIT # 22-00351).

Exporter Eregli Demir ve Celik Fabrikalari, known as Erdemir, asked the Court of International Trade in 2022 to review the ITC’s 2021 decision to continue the AD order. It said the ITC should have conducted a changed circumstances review or revisited other conclusions due to flaws in its initial 2016 injury investigation. Erdemir says the ITC should have excluded the primary Turkish exporter’s goods from its volume analysis of Turkish hot-rolled steel imports after that exporter, Çolakoglu, was retroactively excluded from the AD order after a court-ordered recalculation of its AD rate from the original investigation (see 2212270053).

In its Dec. 21 brief supporting a July 14 motion for judgment, Erdemir said the U.S. was wrong to claim that the ITC is not required to reconsider injury determinations from its original investigations in sunset reviews, as DOJ alleged in its Nov. 16 opposition to judgment.

The ITC was statutorily required to consider whether material injury would have continued or recurred in the absence of the AD orders it was reviewing, Erdemir said. That couldn’t have happened if Colakoglu’s goods were properly excluded from the review, because Turkey’s import volume as a whole would then be negligible, it said.

It also claimed the U.S. was trying to redefine the case before the court. The U.S. argued that Erdemir was ranging beyond the scope of its complaint by focusing on ITC’s decision to not conduct a changed circumstances review, rather than solely on the continuation of the AD order. However, as plaintiff, Erdemir said it was master of its complaint.

“The Commission attempts to distract this court from examining the Commission’s refusal to consider the full effect of the Colakoglu’s exclusion from the AD order retroactive to Commerce’s preliminary determination,” it said.