CAFC Issues Mandate After Decision Sustaining Surrogate Pick in Steel Nail AD Review
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its mandate in a case on the Commerce Department's selection of a surrogate financial statement in a review of the antidumping duty order on steel nails from Oman (Mid Continent Steel & Wire v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1039).
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In its decision, the appellate court said Commerce offered a "discernible and adequate explanation" for its selection of Indian company Sundram Fasteners as a surrogate to calculate the constructed value for exporter Oman Fasteners (see 2501070084).
Oman Fasteners argued that the selection was unreasonable, since the agency didn't explain its pick of Sundram over Omani steel pipe maker Al Jazeera Steel Products Co. SAOG. The court disagreed, finding it reasonable for the agency to pick Sundram over Al Jazeera, since Sundram makes fasteners, while Al Jazeera does not.
And while Sundram was found by Commerce to have received a subsidy, the agency said this didn't undercut the company's "reasonableness as a comparator," since the subsidy was "tiny relative to Sundram's total revenue for the period of investigation."
The CAFC also said Commerce reasonably picked Sundram over financial statements from Thai steel nail manufacturer L.S. Industry Co. The initial statements from L.S. Industry were only partially translated, and Oman Fasteners only submitted fully translated documents after deadline. The court said the respondent and not Commerce "is to blame for both those failures, and we have not been shown that Commerce had to treat those failures as excusable, whether as resulting from good faith efforts to meet a deadline for providing a full translation or otherwise."