Commerce Can't Rely on 'Rote Application' of Methodology in Italian Steel Remand, US Steelmaker Argues

The Commerce Department failed to support its use of quarterly costs and failed to provide a rational explanation when it revised the antidumping duty margin for Italian steel exporter Officine Tecnosider to zero percent on remand, Nucor Corporation said in its Oct. 12 remand comments at the Court of Internatinoal Trade (Officine Tecnosider SRL v. United States, CIT # 23-00001).

On remand, Commerce agreed to use the quarterly cost methodology offered by Tecnosider instead of its usual annual cost calculation. Commerce said that it found Tecnosider'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 (see 2309120010)

Nucor said that while Commerce used its "typical approach" of examining the five largest control numbers in the home market with the five largest in the U.S., that "rote application" failed to address the specific facts of the record. Commerce was unable to conduct a trend analysis because Tecnosider only made U.S. sales in the third quarter of the review period. Nucor claimed that there was evidence of a correlation between cost and price for only half of the relevant data and Commerce failed to explain why its conclusion was still reasonable, even in view of that gap.

Nucor also alleged that Commerce failed to "meaningfully engage" with its arguments in response to the department's draft redetermination. Commerce has deviated from its normal methodology when required by the facts of the specific case, Nucor said, meaning it cannot simply lean on its "normal approach" to issues as an excuse for ignoring specific facts in specific cases, or as an excuse for failing to provide reasoned explanations, Nucor said.

Commerce had asked for, and was granted, a voluntary remand to review information submitted by Tecnosider on the agency's use of a quarterly cost methodology (see 2305160042). Using the quarterly methodology, Commerce found that more than 20% of Tecnosider's home market cases were at prices below the cost of production and didn't permit the recovery of costs within a reasonable period of time. Commerce decided to disregard those sales and recalculated, arriving at a zero percent margin.