US Opposes Bid to Add to Record in Suit on Denied Scope Ruling Application

The U.S. on May 31 opposed U.S. manufacturer Deer Park Glycine's bid to complete the record in a scope ruling case on calcium glycinate by including a scope ruling application from a separate proceeding. The government said a scope ruling application wasn't submitted during "this segment of the administrative proceeding" being challenged at the Court of International Trade, and the Commerce Department didn't "rely on it in reaching its determination not to initiate another scope inquiry regarding a product that had just been the subject of a final scope ruling" (Deer Park Glycine v. United States, CIT # 24-00016).

Deer Park Glycine's predecessor in interest, GEO Specialty Chemicals, submitted a scope ruling application in August 2023, claiming that calcium glycinate is subject to the antidumping duty orders on glycine from India, Japan and Thailand or the countervailing duty orders on glycine from India and China. In October 2023, Commerce found calcium glycinate not to be subject to the orders.

In November 2023, GEO then filed a scope ruling application requesting Commerce find calcium glycinate within the scope of the orders. Commerce declined to open another scope case, finding that the proceeding would be "duplicative." In a separate case, Deer Park filed suit against the October scope ruling, then it filed the present suit a month later challenging the decision not to initiate the second scope case.

In the present suit, Deer Park moved to file the August scope ruling application. The government opposed this motion on the grounds that it's not part of the record given that it was "part of a prior and separate scope proceeding" and was not considered by the commerce secretary in deciding not to initiate a scope inquiry following the second scope ruling application.