Window Wall System Kits Are Not Finished Goods and Belong Outside AD/CVD Orders, Complaint Says

The Commerce Department acted in conflict with its established practice by finding that window wall system kits are outside the scope of antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China, the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee said in a June 25 complaint. In the scope ruling, Commerce held that Reflection Window + Wall's window wall system kits qualify for the "finished goods kits" exclusion of the orders. This determination is not accurate, the coalition said, since the window wall system kits are not assembled as is into a finished product and are instead "generally assembled, attached, and sealed in the field and can interlock and cover large portions of the exterior of a building" (Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee v. United States, CIT #21-00253).

The window wall system kits are more akin to the curtain wall units that Commerce previously had found to not be excludable as a finished goods kits since they require further finishing (i.e., the in-the-field installation), the AEFTC said. Commerce did not specifically address this argument from the coalition in the scope ruling. "As Commerce’s determination in the Scope Ruling was directly contrary to its previous scope rulings under the same AD and CVD Orders and thus a departure from Commerce’s consistent past practice without reasonable explanation, the determination is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law," the complaint said.