Commerce Failed to Follow CIT's Orders by Excluding Flanges From AD Scope, US Producer Says

The Commerce Department did not adhere to the Court of International Trade's orders when it excluded importer Star Pipe Products' 11 ductile iron flanges from the antidumping duty order on cast iron pipe fittings from China, U.S. producer ASC Engineered Solutions said in a Jan. 21 brief. The court did not instruct Commerce to exclude Star Pipe's flanges but rather to "conduct a more comprehensive review," which the agency failed to do. "Rather, the redetermination simply assumes, incorrectly, that a particular result had been directed by the Court," the brief said (Star Pipe Products v. United States, CIT #17-00236).

Originally, Commerce said that the flanges were in scope, falling under the description in the scope language that the flanges are "fittings that are made out of ductile iron that have the same physical characteristics as the gray or cast iron fittings subject to the scope above."

Commerce had relied on the original petition of the antidumping duty order and an exclusion for "ductile cast iron fittings with mechanical joint ends (MJ), or push on ends (PO), or flanged ends and produced to the American Water Works Association (AWWA) specifications AWWA C110 or AWWA C153." Commerce said that this didn't apply to Star Pipe's AWWA C115 flanges, citing the original petition. But the court ruled that the original petition never proposed an exclusion for products made to AWWA standards (see 2108270034). On remand, Commerce then decided to exclude Star Pipe's flanges from the AD order (see 2112220028).

ASC is now telling CIT that this result violates U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit precedent on scope rulings. Since the appellate court established that if Commerce finds that a product clearly falls within the plain language of the scope, and there is no ambiguity, then there's no justification to consider "(k)(1)" materials as Commerce did, the defendant-intervenor said. "Statements related to purported end-uses in the Petition and ITC report, which fall within 19 C.F.R. § 351.225(k)(1), simply should not have been interpreted and then used to displace the plain meaning of the scope language," the brief said.