Trade Court Affirms Remand Results in Fabricated Structural Steel Antidumping Case
Court of International Trade Judge Claire Kelly sustained the Commerce Department's remand results in a case concerning the antidumping duty investigation on fabricated structural steel from Mexico, in a Dec. 13 decision. Kelly found Commerce's changes and explanations reasonable and based on substantial evidence in accordance with law that complied with the court’s March remand order (see 2203310028).
In July, Commerce returned its remand redetermination. The agency stuck by its methodology used to calculate profit for the constructed value of antidumping duty respondent Building Systems de Mexico (BSM) but dropped the use of adverse facts available for one unreportable sale, used the date of substantial completion of a project as the date of sale rather than the date of the purchase order or sales order acknowledgment, and didn't exclude the operating results of the business unit in question from the calculation of the constructed export price profit rate (see 2207210034).
On remand, Commerce said it couldn't use BSM's own home market sales to calculate computer value as "BSM did not sell the merchandise under consideration in third-country markets" during the period of investigation. Addressing the time of the contested project's contract, Commerce said that evidence showed all the purchase orders Corey received for the project were dated in 2018, rendering the project in scope.
The court also sustained Commerce’s remand decision to use Corey’s home market sales to calculate BSM’s constructed value profit and expenses. The court found Commerce's explanation that "viability for home market sales to be based on volume of sales as a percentage of the U.S sales rather than the number of sales" to be reasonable and noted that Commerce has discretion on how it determines the best sources of information on which to rely for constructed value calculations.
Commerce’s determination not to rely on data from the other companies on the record is reasonable, Kelly said. The agency's conclusion that Corey’s combined selling expenses and profit "closely approximated the statutory preference" for constructed value profit and was reasonable because of Corey's similar position as a Mexican producer of fabricated structural steel and, unlike other companies considered, Corey’s profits were specific to producers of the product. In response to the court questions regarding the differences between Corey's and BSM’s businesses, Commerce explained on remand that "the record [did] not reveal a pattern of profit on Corey’s fabricated structural steel sales that would overstate the profit rate Commerce assigned to BSM’s constructed value." Kelly found that Commerce had differentiated other fabricated structural steel producers on remand "in a manner that accounts for the profit differences."
Commerce reconsidered its application of adverse facts available for a project for which BSM did not report during the period of investigation. Commerce said on remand that because BSM and its buyer only completed the terms of the agreement in July 2019 when the buyer canceled the remaining project, the order at issue was not substantially complete during the period.
Finally, Commerce changed its dates of sale from the date of the purchase order or the sales order acknowledgment to the date of substantial completion "because it is the earliest date on which BSM and its buyer firmly established the material terms of sale" because price and quantity are still unresolved after the purchase order and sales order acknowledgment, the buyer and speller had not yet firmly established material terms of the deal.
(Building Systems de Mexico v. United States, Slip Op. 22-141, CIT #20-00069, dated 12/13/22, Judge Claire Kelly. Attorneys: Matthew Nicely of Akin Gump for plaintiff BSM; Daniel Roland for defendant U.S. government; Alan Price of Wiley Rein for defendant-intervenor Full Member Subgroup of the American Institute of Steel Construction)