Australian Co. Challenges Commerce's Decision to Not Deduct Rebates From Normal Value in AD Case

Australian exporter BlueScope Steel and its U.S. affiliate challenged the Commerce Department's decision to not deduct discounts and rebates from the company's normal value when setting its antidumping duty rate in an administrative review, in a Sept. 28 complaint at the Court of International Trade. BlueScope said that this decision cut against the agency's regulations and was "premised on a wholly inaccurate understanding of the data that BlueScope submitted" (BlueScope Steel Ltd., et al. v. United States, CIT #21-00509).

The complaint challenges elements of Commerce's final results of the administrative review on hot-rolled steel flat products from Australia covering entries in 2018-19. In the preliminary results, Commerce assigned a 7.96% dumping rate for BlueScope, only to up it to 9.94% in the final results. The discrepancy came when Commerce determined to not deduct bona fide rebate amounts from the exporter's home market sales.

In doing so, Commerce accepted the antidumping petitioner's arguments over alleged deficiencies with BlueScope's submitted sales data "long after Petitioner's counsel had received the sales databases," the complaint said. The only count in the complaint states that this is inconsistent with Commerce's own regulations and past practices.