Commerce Correctly Assigned AFA to Collapsed Respondent, DOJ Argues

The Court of International Trade should sustain the Commerce Department's remand results in an antidumping duty investigation on utility scale wind towers from Spain, DOJ said July 31, arguing that respondent Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) failed to show that it shouldn't be subject to an AFA rate (Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy v. U.S., CIT # 21-00449).

Commerce previously concluded that SGRE was an associate of an additional respondent, Windar, and used Windar's 73% AFA-based margin from the original investigation (see 2306160021). In its remand comments, SGRE claimed that Commerce's admission that Windar was an associate of SGRE meant the department incorrectly rejected a response from SGRE that included Windar data as "unsolicited" despite asking for information on the company's associates earlier in the investigation (see 2307180066).

“Although SGRE raises additional arguments, it misconstrues the actual [basis] of Commerce’s decision,” DOJ said in response. The government noted that SGRE previously agreed that it was collapsible with Windar, that Windar did not contest its AFA rate before Commerce or before CIT, and that SGRE never contested Commerce's "long-standing practice" of taking an AFA rate from a constituent part of a collapsed entity and applying it to the entire entity.

DOJ also said SGRE’s argument that Windar submitted a questionnaire response during the remand "misconstrues what happened.” SGRE submitted a response that included information about its affiliates, including Windar, which is "different than Windar submitting its own timely response to Commerce," the U.S. said. Commerce also had told SGRE to stop sourcing data from Windar, DOJ claimed.

SGRE tried to compensate for Windar’s missing submission with new information during the remand proceeding, but DOJ said “this is not permitted” because “Commerce is not required to accept untimely corrective submissions when a party has failed to cooperate during the proceeding.” Windar therefore had no information on the record and Commerce was correct to assign it an AFA rate.