Rebar Importer Paid Section 232 Duties, So Commerce Can Deduct From US Price in AD Case, DOJ Says

Steel rebar importer Power Steel Co. paid Section 232 duties on its imports, and those payments were eligible to be deducted from its U.S. price in an antidumping case, the Department of Justice argued in a June 9 brief in the Court of International Trade (Power Steel Co., Ltd. v. United States, CIT #20-03771).

In a case challenging the results of the 2017-18 antidumping administrative review on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Taiwan, Power Steel is attempting to argue that Commerce cannot deduct the Section 232 tariffs from its U.S. price and that it did not pay the duties in the first place. The CIT has already ruled on the first issue in a separate case, finding that Commerce can deduct duties since they are a normal import duty and not a special duty meant to remedy damage to U.S. industry (see 2102170040).

On the second issue, the importer attempted to introduce new evidence, including a revised sales contract that was just the original contract with a handwritten revision, that shows it never paid the duties. "The handwritten revision was not signed, initialed, or dated; it simply scratched out Power Steel’s name," DOJ said. "Commerce did not consider this handwritten revision to demonstrate that some of the Section 232 duties were not paid by Power Steel."

Power Steel argued that the agency should have conducted an analysis of the legal validity of the handwritten revision. "If Power Steel wanted to demonstrate that someone else paid some of the Section 232 duties, it should have provided additional information supporting its claim," DOJ said. "It is hardly unreasonable for Commerce to decline to rely on a handwritten revision scratching out Power Steel’s name as the party responsible for paying the duties."