Exporter's Solar Cell Sales Destined for US, Should be Considered in Review, JA Solar Tells CIT

March 18, 2022 |Litigation

Chinese exporter JA Solar International's sales were destined for the U.S., and the Commerce Department was wrong to exclude the sales in an antidumping duty review, the exporter argued in a brief to the Court of International Trade. As evidence, JA cited respondent Inventec Solar Energy Corporation's (ISEC's) questionnaire responses showing its knowledge that the sales were meant for the U.S., corroborating evidence from ISEC on this point and evidence from JA Solar supporting ISEC's admissions of knowledge (JA Solar International Limited v. United States, CIT #21-00514).

JA Solar is challenging portions of the fifth administrative review of the antidumping duty order on crystaline silicon photovoltaic products Taiwan covering entries in 2019 and 2020. Commerce picked two mandatory respondents for the review, one being ISEC. ISEC said that it had sales wherein it was told by its customer to send the solar cells to producers in a third country. But ISEC argued that these sales constituted reportable U.S. sales since the respondent knew, based on email or other sales documentation, that the goods were headed for the U.S. after being assembled into solar modules.

JA Solar bolstered ISEC's argument by "establishing a closed-loop showing that ISEC's sales were delivered to the United States," the brief said. The exporter argued that Commerce's position "overrode" the final destination of ISEC's solar cells "by every part in the supply chain."

The exporter argued that Commerce wrongly tossed this evidence that revealed that the sales were destined for the U.S. On this first type of evidence, the admissions of knowledge, Commerce had previously accepted this type of evidence to support the final destination of the sales. "Commerce's rejection of ISEC's admission, therefore, was arbitrary and capricious because it failed to provide a sufficient explanation for treating these admissions differnelty than its past determinations," the brief said.