Solar Cell Importer Challenges Implementation Dates of Partial Revocation of AD/CVD Orders

The effective dates of the Commerce Department's partial revocation of the antidumping and countervailing duties on solar cells from China ran contrary to the agency's stated practice, because they excluded unliquidated entries that weren't subject to the final results of an administrative review or automatic liquidation at the time, importer Source Global said in a Feb. 11 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Source Global, PBC v. United States, CIT #22-00009).

After conducting a changed circumstances review, Commerce excepted off-grid small portable crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels from the orders. The effective dates of this partial revocation were Dec. 1, 2020, for the AD order and Jan. 1, 2020, for the CVD order. Any entries brought in from this date on would not be assessed A/CV duties and any duties paid but only for unliquidated entries would be refunded.

Source Global argues that Commerce failed to follow the standard agency practice, which is to apply the revocation to "all unliquidated entries of the merchandise covered by a revocation that are not covered by the final results of an administrative review or automatic liquidation." At the time of the Dec. 1, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2020, dates, Commerce was conducting two administrative reviews of the orders, with the review periods preceding the dates selected for the partial revocation. Due to this, there were unliquidated entries that weren't covered by the final results of the AD/CVD reviews.

"By selecting the dates identified in the Final Results for application of the partial revocations, the Department excluded prior, unliquidated entries that were not subject to final results of an administrative review or automatic liquidation," the complaint said. "Doing so was contrary to the Department’s stated practice." Accordingly, Source Global is requesting the court to find the dates run contrary to the law and remand the issue to Commerce.