Chinese Activated Carbon Exporter Takes to CIT Over AD Review Results
The Commerce Department's surrogate value picks for inputs of activated carbon violated the law, exporter Jilin Bright Future Chemicals Co. argued in a Jan. 6 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Commerce further erred by deducting VAT amounts from Jilin Bright's export price and in its valuation of the overhead; selling, general and administrative expenses; and profit components of normal value by calculating surrogate financial ratios with data from Tan Meng Keong and Century Chemical Works, the exporter said (Jilin Bright Future Chemicals Co. v. United States, CIT #22-00336).
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The case concerns the administrative review of the antidumping duty order on activated carbon from China, covering entries in 2020-21, in which Commerce picked Jilin Bright and Datong Juqiang Activated Carbon Co. as mandatory respondents. At the end of the review, Jilin Bright was hit with a $0.62 per kilogram dumping rate.
Jilin Bright filed a four-count complaint, taking issue with, among other things, Commerce's valuation of the exporter's coal and coal tar pitch. For the coal, the respondent said that the agency violated the law by using import statistics from Malaysian tariff schedule subheading 2701.12 as opposed to Malaysian tariff schedule subheading 2701.19. For the coal tar pitch, Commerce erred by using the average unit value of imports under Malaysian tariff schedule subheading 2706 "despite substantial evidence that this value was unreliable and that it is not specific to the coal tar pitch consumed by Jilin Bright," the complaint said.
Commerce further violated the law in its use of Tan Meng's and Century Chemical's financial statements for its surrogate financial ratios, the brief said. Lastly, the agency did not support its deduction of "unrefunded or irrecoverable VAT from Jilin Bright's export price" with substantial evidence, the exporter argued.