Petitioner Supports US Use of Transactions Disregarded Rule in Canadian Lumber Case

A petitioner supported the U.S. argument (see 2408230020) that the Commerce Department correctly calculated a Canadian lumber review respondent’s costs under the transactions disregarded rule. The Sept. 10 reply brief comes as part of a wide-branching case whose parties include the government of Canada (Government of Canada v. United States, CIT Consol. # 23-00187).

Petitioner Committee Overseeing Action for Lumber International Trade Investigations or Negotiations (COALITION) pushed back against the claim by plaintiffs, led by mandatory respondent Canfor, that Commerce shouldn’t have applied the rule in regard to Canfor’s sale of a byproduct, woodchips, nor should it have adjusted the exporter’s costs due to a “bookkeeping convenience” between a mill and an affiliate.

First, Canfor said the department wrongly included an unrepresentative legacy contract between several of its mills and an unaffiliated customer in its calculation of Canfor’s cost reimbursements by its sale of woodchips. But “Commerce reasonably concluded that there were no unusual circumstances surrounding these mills’ sales of woodchips” to that customer, COALITION said.

Among other things, the record shows that that contract allows for price changes based on market conditions, it said.

And second, the exporter argued that Commerce shouldn’t have adjusted its costs due to a “bookkeeping convenience” by which an affiliate served merely as a “payment intermediary” and a “document handler” for electricity paid for by one of Canfor’s mills. But document handling is a transaction in itself, even if it is a small one, the trade coalition said.