Commerce Grants Zero Dumping Rate for Italian Steel Plate on Remand

The Commerce department revised the antidumping margin for Italian steel exporter Officine Tecnosider to zero percent in its Sept. 11 remand results. The department reached its revised rate using the quarterly cost of production methodology instead of its standard annual analysis (Officine Tecnosider v. United States, CIT # 23-00001).

Commerce had requested a voluntary remand to consider information submitted by Officine Tecnosider on the agency's use of the quarterly cost methodology. DOJ told the court that it couldn't find Commerce's analysis of the quarterly average prices of steel slab when prepping its reply brief, leading to the remand request (see 2305080066). In May, CIT granted the request, calling it "substantial and legitimate" given the lack of indication that the agency analyzed the "only significant direct material input that the exporter submitted" (see 2305160042).

On remand, Commerce agreed to use the quarterly cost methodology instead of its standard annual cost calculation, saying that it found the exporter's costs of manufacturing had significantly changed over the period of review and that those changes were linked with sales prices over the same period.

Using the quarterly methodology, Commerce found that more than 20% of the exporter's home market cases during the period of investigation were at prices below the cost of production and did not permit the recovery of costs within a reasonable period of time. Commerce then disregarded those sales and recalculated the dumping margin.