Commerce Correctly Stuck With Benchmarks on Remand: DOJ, Intervenors

The Commerce Department correctly stuck by its benchmark picks for the land program and the aluminum plate, sheet and strip program in a lawsuit on the 2016-17 administrative review of the countervailing duty order on aluminum foil from China, DOJ said in its Oct. 31 remand comments at the Court of International Trade (Jiangsu Zhongji Lamination Materials Co. v. U.S., CIT # 21-00133).

Commerce fully explained its selection of Trade Data Monitor (TDM) data, DOJ said, and explained that the TDM data was superior because the data for HTS subheading 7606.12 was "the only record submission covering the wide range of products purchased by Zhongji and Xiashun" and is based on export average values. Commerce also explained that the Commodities Research Unit and Global Trade Atlas data were "merely estimates and not based on world market prices" and didn't cover the full range of products bought by the respondents.

Zhongji also failed to show that Commerce's selection was unreasonable in its September comments (see 2309190058), DOJ said. The materials relied on by Zhongji -- a declaration, an International Trade Commission report and an Aluminum Association’s Standards publication -- failed to prove Zhongji’s contention that its proposed benchmark data was superior to that chosen by Commerce, DOJ said. "Even if Zhongji has provided some amount of evidence in favor of its preferred data, that would not render Commerce’s reliance on the TDM data unreasonable," DOJ said.

The department also correctly selected the Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis (CBRE) Asian Marketview Report for Thailand Industrial Land Report as its land benchmark and complied with the remand order by explaining its choice, DOJ said. In compliance with the remand order, Commerce reevaluated all benchmark sources and it properly continued to find that the 2010 CBRE report data was the best available information on the record for the purpose of serving as a benchmark. DOJ noted that the report was used as a benchmark "both in a prior segment of the underlying proceeding and in numerous other proceedings."

Thailand is in closer geographic proximity to China than the countries preferred by Zhongji -- Mexico and Brazil -- and was more economically comparable to China. The more recent 2016-2018 CBRE reports data pertaining to “logistics rent” rather than “manufacturing facilities,” while the 2010 CBRE Report contains data corresponding to industrial land prices in Thailand, DOJ said. For purposes of identifying a land for less than adequate remuneration benchmark in China, Commerce explained that it seeks benchmark information that is "contemporaneous" with when the exporter acquired the land-use rights from the government, DOJ said.

The Aluminum Association Trade Enforcement Working Group agreed with both of DOJ's points in its own same-day remand comments, filed in its role as defendant-intervenor.