AD Petitioner Challenges Duty Drawback Adjustment in Turkish AD Review at Trade Court

Antidumping duty petitioner the Aluminum Association Common Alloy Aluminum Sheet Trade Enforcement Working Group argued in a new lawsuit at the Court of International Trade that the Commerce Department "improperly calculated" exporter Assan Aluminyum Sanayi ve Ticaret's duty drawback adjustment (The Aluminum Association Common Alloy Aluminum Sheet Trade Enforcement Working Group v. United States, CIT # 23-00251).

Filing a complaint Dec. 21, the petitioner said Commerce may not divide the amount of total exempted duties on closed inward processing certificates by the total amount of exports made under these certificates to get a per-unit drawback adjustment, which the agency did in the 2020-2022 administrative review of the AD order on common alloy aluminum sheet from Turkey.

In using this method, Commerce "has failed to base the duty drawback adjustment on 'the amount' of import duty liability forgiven by the Turkish government 'by reason of the exportation of the subject merchandise to the United States,'" as required by the statute, the brief said. The agency instead based the amount on Assan's U.S. sales volume, contradicting the plain language of 19 U.S.C. 1677a(c)(1)(B) -- the statute governing adjustments to export price or constructed export price.

The complaint noted that Commerce increases the export price or CEP by the amount of any import duties that have been rebated or exempted due to the export of the subject goods to the U.S. The agency uses a "two-pronged test" to find whether (1) the rebate or exemption is linked to the export of the goods and "(2) there are enough imports of the raw material to account for the duty drawback paid by the subject country government upon the export of subject merchandise."

For Turkey specifically, Commerce exempts duties only with respect to "inward processing certificates that have closed." The Turkish government gives a company an inward processing certificate that lays out the quantity of raw material allowed to be imported free of duty and the quantity of export required to close the IPC.