Exporters Say Commerce Barred From Using Romania as Main Surrogate in AD Review

The Commerce Department improperly decided that it can use Romania as the primary surrogate in the 2021-22 antidumping duty review on chlorinated isocyanurates from China after Romania wasn't submitted as a potential surrogate prior to the surrogate country comment deadline, exporters Heze Huayi Chemical Co. and Juancheng Kangtai Chemical Co. argued (Bio-Lab v. United States, CIT Consol. # 24-00024).

Filing a motion for judgment at the Court of International Trade on July 16, the exporters said that as a result of the missed deadline, Romania can't be considered a primary surrogate nation. Commerce's findings to the contrary are "arbitrary and capricious" since they "ignored these deadlines and" the agency's standard policy "with respect to surrogate country deadlines," the brief said.

Romania was suggested by petitioner Bio-Lab six months after the primary surrogate deadline but before the final deadline for any submissions on surrogate information. In response to the claim that the nation was untimely filed as a potential surrogate, Commerce just said the Romanian surrogate value data was timely filed by the final 30-day surrogate value deadline.

Heze Huayi and Kangtai said they don't contest that the petitioner could submit Romanian data up to the 30-day deadline, but that this question is separate from the inquiry into whether Romania can stand as a primary surrogate. The petitioner "utterly missed that deadline," barring Romania from being used as the primary surrogate nation.

The two exporters said they were prejudiced by this decision since they timely nominated Malaysia to be used as the primary surrogate. "The Court should find, consistent with its set deadlines, past practice, and principles of fairness, that Romania was not properly submitted as potential surrogate country on this record," the brief said. "The Department’s reliance on Romania ignores its own deadlines and practice and is thus arbitrary."

The two companies also claimed that the Malaysian data was better than the Romanian data, making Commerce's selection of the Romanian data unsupported. The Malaysian data offers "superior surrogate data for financial ratios, chlorine, and labor," the brief said.

Commerce said the Malaysian labor rate was unreliable and that the data submitted by the companies had a "less preferable water rate." In response, the exporters said "Malaysia does source not only a reliable labor rate, but a more specific and contemporaneous labor rate than Romania. Further, Malaysia sources the best available information for a primary raw material, chlorine."