Petitioner-Turned-Importer Contests Ruling That It's Covered by AD/CVD Scope It Sought

A petitioner in antidumping and countervailing duty cases on chassis from China that later began to import vehicle chassis from Vietnam said the Commerce Department was misapplying the scope of its orders on Chinese chassis from China that it itself had requested (Pitts Enterprises, Inc. v. U.S., CIT # 24-00030).

Importer Pitts Enterprises submitted a March 6 complaint to the Court of International Trade contesting a January scope ruling that found its chassis from Vietnam, made with individual Chinese axle components, were subject to the AD/CVD orders on chassis from China (see 2401110052).

Pitts said it had itself filed the initial petition for the AD/CVD scope orders on chassis from China, doing so “to combat what was determined by Commerce to be illegal and unfair dumping and subsidies from China” for both Chinese chassis and Chinese subassemblies of chassis that were imported into the U.S. and then assembled.

“Pitts, as Petitioner, thus proposed the scope language, set by Commerce in the Orders, to specifically cover chassis and subassemblies thereof imported in the United States, i.e., the product type, from China, i.e., the subject country, and not any country, and to not cover individual Chinese components alone which are parts used in the integrated production of chassis,” it said.

It said that the Coalition of American Chassis Manufacturers, of which it is a part, had confirmed during the AD/CVD investigations that the scope wouldn't cover “Chinese-origin components used to manufacture chassis alone when entered separately from in-scope Chinese chassis and subassemblies.”

Pitts said it is “predominately” a U.S. chassis manufacturer, but that “to respond to the need to strengthen the U.S. logistics chain,” it had begun importing additional chassis from Vietnam. It said it did so prior to filing its AD/CVD petition regarding chassis from China.

It said that “within a year” of the orders being issued, CIMC Intermodal Equipment, “a U.S. subsidiary of one of China’s largest state-owned enterprises, found to have engaged in dumping,” filed an EAPA allegation with Commerce against Pitts.

Its products at issue, Pitts said, were its “skeletal rectangular framed semi-trailers used to transport shipping cargo containers.” They include multiple components outside of the chassis frame itself, some of which are produced by third parties, it said. The particular parts that Commerce dubbed subassemblies were “individual Chinese axle and landing gear leg components in Pitts’ finished Vietnamese chassis imports,” it said.

Pitts filed its scope ruling application as a result.

The importer said that the Chinese components were not subassemblies because those were explicitly described differently in the scope. The department was illegally interpreting the orders in a way that changed their scope, it said. That also meant that the new scope fell outside of the merchandise considered under the International Trade Commission’s injury investigation, it said.

Pitts also argued that “neither Commerce’s regulations nor case law allows Commerce to disregard relevant (k)(1)(i) sources in interpreting the scope language,” such as the ”express exclusion of individual components” that the petitioners for the orders confirmed were included in those orders.

The importer asked the court to remand the scope ruling with instructions to Commerce to change its determination to be in line with the opinions of the court.