Commerce Used Wrong Date of Sale for US Sales in PET Resin AD Review, Exporter Tells CIT
The Commerce Department violated the law by changing the date of sale for antidumping respondent Octal's U.S. sales from the dates reported by the exporter, the company argued in a Dec. 29 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce should have used the date when the relevant price index was published, as reported by the respondent, rather than the invoice date for the date of sale. The result of the switch was a 3.96% dumping margin for the exporter (Octal v. U.S., CIT # 22-00352).
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The case concerns the 2020-2021 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on polyethylene terephthalate resin from Oman. In the review's preliminary results, Commerce calculated a 1.27% rate for Octal after accepting the exporter's submissions concerning the date of sale of its U.S. transactions. The agency then issued a questionnaire instead of performing on-site verification, later issuing its final results in which it said it opted to use the invoice date over the date when the relevant price index was published as the date of sale for Octal's U.S. sales.
In its complaint, the respondent said that Commerce preliminarily found Octal gave enough information to show that using the dates of sale it reported "better reflects the dates on which it established the material terms of these sales." However, the agency reversed itself in the final results. This decision "was not supported by substantial evidence" and cuts against the agency's "own regulation and past practice concerning the appropriate date of sale to be employed," the complaint said.