Thai Steel Exporter, DOJ Sign Off on Commerce Remand Results Scrapping PMS in AD Case

Steel exporter Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. agreed to the Commerce Department's remand results dropping the cost-based particular market situation adjustment in the sales-below-cost test for imports of circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand, according to May 28 comments filed in the Court of International Trade. The Department of Justice also signed off on the remand results, finding that although Commerce filed the results under respectful protest, continuing to find a PMS in Thailand, the agency complied with court orders by scrapping the PMS adjustment (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. Ltd. v. United States, CIT #19-00208).

The remand stems from the 2017-18 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand. In an Oct. 19, 2020, opinion, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves said the court repeatedly held that “the statute does not authorize a particular market situation adjustment to the cost of production when Commerce applies the sales-below-cost test to determine which home market sales to exclude from the calculation of normal value.”

DOJ had argued that Section 504 of the Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015 gave the agency the authority to adjust the cost of production for the sales-below-cost test. Choe-Groves said that while the statute “authorizes Commerce to disregard certain sales when basing normal value on home market sales, or to use an alternative calculation methodology upon a cost-based particular market situation determination when basing normal value on constructed value,” it does not give Commerce the ability to adjust the cost of production for the sales-below-cost test.