Commerce Affirms Decision Not to Collapse Italian Exporter and Input Producer in AD Review
The Commerce Department stuck with its determination in the 2021-22 administrative review of the antidumping duty order on mechanical tubing of carbon and alloy steel from Italy that exporter Dalmine and its Romanian input provider Silcotub shouldn't be collapsed (ArcelorMittal Tubular Products v. United States, CIT # 24-00039).
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The agency asked for a voluntary remand to allow petitioner ArcelorMittal Tubular Products to submit five memos from Commerce from recent cases in which the agency collapsed entities "under analogous facts" that Commerce previously rejected (see 2409270011).
After issuing its preliminary results in the review, Commerce received a rebuttal brief from ArcelorMittal, which had untimely new factual information "in the form of quotations and citations to collapsing memoranda that were not on the record," the agency said. Commerce also rejected the petitioner's substantive claim that Dalmine and Silcotub should be collapsed into one entity.
On remand, Commerce accepted the previously rejected information, though it said its position continues to be that untimely filed factual information may not be on the record and that collapsing memoranda contain factual information that must be timely filed on the record of a proceeding before parties can rely on it.
In its resubmitted brief, ArcelorMittal argued that Dalmine and Silcotub have production facilities for identical goods that wouldn't require "substantial retooling to restructure their manufacturing priorities because both companies produce hollows that are used in the production of subject cold-drawn mechanical tooling." The petitioner said Commerce's regulations "expressly allow the collapsing of companies that have the capability to produce similar products," citing an AD review and an anti-circumvention inquiry to support the claim.
Commerce said in response that the petitioner's reliance on these cases is "misplaced," since in both of them, the "entities at issue produced products which were within the scope of the orders/inquiry." However, in this proceeding, Silcotub is in Romania and thus can't make subject merchandise. As a result, "the consideration of these decisions does not alter our determination to not collapse Dalmine and Silcotub," the remand results said.
ArcelorMittal also cited three collapsing decisions to support their claim that there's "significant potential for manipulation of price or production between Dalmine and Silcotub." The petitioner said the decisions "stand for the principle that Commerce makes its determinations based on the totality of the circumstances," adding that, even if Commerce found that Silcotub doesn't make subject goods, there "still exists the potential for Dalmine to shift sales of subject merchandise through Silcotub."
Commerce said it agrees that it takes account of the totality of the circumstances, but, again, reliance on the three cases is "misplaced." The agency said the potential for manipulation doesn't exist since Silcotub doesn't export tubing to the U.S. made by any company other than Dalmine, Dalmine has fully reported Silcotub's downstream sales of Dalmine's tubing, and Silcotub doesn't have its own cash deposit rate.