Importer Tells CIT Its Heat Sink Manifolds Qualify for Exclusion to Extrusions AD/CVD Orders

Importer Wagner Spray Tech. Corp. told the Court of International Trade that the Commerce Department impermissibly used (k)(1) sources to expand the scope of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from China when it included the company's finished heat sink manifold under the AD/CVD orders (Wagner Spray Tech. Corp. v. United States, CIT # 23-00241).

Commerce said Wagner's heat sink manifold didn't qualify for the finished heat sink exclusion of the orders. In so ruling, the agency said the manifold's design and production aren't organized around "specified thermal thresholds and that its manifold is not tested to satisfy those thresholds." The agency said Wagner's identified thermal thresholds were the thresholds of the electrical parts the manifold needed to cool instead of the thresholds of the manifold itself.

As a result, Commerce said the electrical components' thermal requirements were insufficient for the exclusion. "That finding was wrong," Wagner said in its May 29 motion for judgment.

The company said the "physical characteristics and specific thermal requirements" for its manifold fall "squarely within the plain terms of the scope exclusion and was supported by substantial evidence." Commerce used statements from the International Trade Commission's final report to "create an extremely limited interpretation of the scope exclusion which thereby expanded the scope of included items the subject AD/CVD orders," the brief said.

Wagner argued that (k)(1) sources can't be used to expand the scope of the order, which is exactly what the agency did, it said.

Evidence showed that Wagner's manifold fits both the physical description of a finished heat sink and the "express criteria outlined in the exclusion." The agency's contrary finding "was based on an unreasonable interpretation of the testing, design and production requirements of the scope exclusion," the brief said. "This interpretation served to severely limit the exclusionary language and expand the scope of these orders to include products that fall within the plain language of the exclusion."