Commerce Drops AFA Rate for Exporter That Lost 3 Employees to COVID

The Commerce Department calculated a zero percent dumping margin for exporter Grupo Simec on remand at the Court of International Trade, dropping the 66.7% adverse facts available rate for the company in the 2019-20 review of the antidumping duty order on steel concrete rebar from Mexico. Commerce accepted submissions from the exporter on remand after the trade court said the agency unreasonably declined an extension request from the company (Grupo Acecero v. United States, CIT # 22-00202).

Commerce also recalculated the rate for non-selected respondents Grupo Acerero and Sidertul, arriving at a zero percent mark for them as well, since Grupo Simec and fellow respondent Deacero both received zero percent margins.

In the review, Grupo Simec initially received several extensions for its initial questionnaire responses due to COVID-19 complications and a Texas winter storm that disrupted access to the exporter's facilities. Grupo Simec was then issued two supplemental questionnaires for which it also received a few extensions due to increasing COVID-19 complications and pandemic-related fatalities of its accountants.

As a September 2021 deadline approached, Grupo Simec requested two more emergency extensions, which were both rejected on the grounds that the deadline had already been extended by three weeks. The ultimate submission was rejected for untimeliness. The trade court rejected this decision as an abuse of discretion (see 2404250062).

On remand, Commerce accepted Grupo Simec's submissions and fully calculated an AD rate for the company, detailing its process in its remand submission. The agency found that "there are no gaps in the record or that Grupo Simec otherwise failed to cooperate to the best of its ability such that the application of AFA would be warranted."

The petitioner, the Rebar Trade Action Coalition, contested Commerce's remand actions, arguing that Commerce went beyond the scope of the court's order by opening the record to allow for the submission of information beyond the data for which the company initially missed the filing deadline. The agency disagreed, finding that the court explicitly told Commerce to "reopen the record" and gave the agency "discretionary authority to request 'any other information it may need' at two separate points in the Remand Holding and Order."