Commerce Properly Adjusted for a Turkish Duty Drawback as It Has Done for Decades, Exporter Says

The argument that a Turkish duty drawback program fails to qualify for a drawback adjustment in an antidumping duty case disregards "decades of [Commerce Department] precedent" over the program, Turkish exporter Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret said in a Feb. 22 brief at the Court of International Trade. Responding to AD petitioner Aluminum Association Common Alloy Aluminum Sheet Trade Enforcement Working Group, Assan said that the Turkish Inward Processing Regime (IPR) has repeatedly been found by Commerce to be eligible for a duty drawback adjustment by passing the agency's two-prong analysis on drawback (Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret v. U.S., CIT #21-00246).

Challenging Commerce’s final determination in its AD investigation on common alloy aluminum sheet from Turkey, the petitioner said the agency didn't follow court precedent when it raised Assan's export price to account for the duty drawback as part of its AD rate calculation. The petitioner said Commerce applied only its two-part test -- that the drawback is linked to the exportation of the subject merchandise, and that imports of the raw material are sufficient to account for the drawback -- and didn't consider a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit holding in Maverick that the imports involved in the drawback be capable of use as inputs for the subject merchandise (see 2112030057).

The association argued Assan shouldn't be granted the drawback adjustment because a portion of the drawback is based on imported inputs that can't be used in the production of the subject merchandise. But this is a misinterpretation of the drawback adjustment eligibility standards, Assan said. "Commerce does not require that all inputs under an IPC be used to produce subject merchandise, but rather that 'at least one imported input under the closed IPC can be used in the production of subject merchandise,'" the brief said. The Federal Circuit upheld this standard in Maverick, the exporter said.

Further, Commerce already considered the association's arguments, Assan said. The agency said its current practice doesn't require the use of the imported input in the production of the exports to receive the drawback adjustment. "This position is consistent with that articulated by the Court in Maverick II, which upheld as reasonable Commerce’s threshold test that the exempted imports be only 'potential inputs of the subject merchandise,'" the brief said.