Commerce Erred in Making Surrogate Country Pick in AD Review, Chinese Companies Argue
The Commerce Department erred by selecting Romania as the surrogate country for China in an antidumping duty review, plaintiffs Jiangsu Alcha Aluminum, Baotou Alcha Aluminum and Alcha International Holdings argued in a Nov. 7 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Bulgaria is both economically comparable to China and has significant production of the subject merchandise, making the selection of Romania illegal, the plaintiffs said. The complaint also objects to Commerce's selection of financial statements, use of partial adverse facts available over raw material consumption, double remedies adjustment and surrogate distance of North American inland train freight (Jiangsu Alcha Aluminum v. U.S., CIT #22-00292).
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The case concerns the 2020-2021 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on common alloy aluminum sheet from China. Jiangsu Alcha is a CAAS manufacturer and exporter to the U.S., Baotou Alcha is an affiliated input supplier to Jiangsu Alcha and Alcha International is a Hong Kong-based exporter of CAAS made by Jiangsu Alcha. Along with challenging Romania as the primary surrogate country, the plaintiffs said the Romanian financial statements "do not constitute the best available information" as shown by the record. These statements have evidence of government subsidies while statements from Bulgaria, which also was considered as a surrogate, have a more detailed breakdown of cost and are more specific than the Romanian statements, the brief said.
As for the remaining challenges, the plaintiffs said that they reported complete factors of production and reconciled these factors with their accounting system. Nevertheless, Commerce used partial AFA to calculate the yield loss and make an upward adjustment to the raw materials consumption rate. This move was illegal, the plaintiffs said. Commerce further erred when it "rejected the Alcha Group an adjustment for double remedies resulting from the imposition of countervailing duties to offset domestic subsidies," the complaint said. Commerce violated the law by using passenger train distances to estimate the plaintiffs' cargo train distances, the brief said.