China Steel Corp. v. United States

Summary

The United States Court of International Trade reviews the Department of Commerce's remand determination in an antidumping duty proceeding involving hot-rolled carbon steel flat products from Taiwan. The court sustains Commerce's determinations concerning affiliation, the use of affiliated-party home-market sales, adverse facts available, and corroboration.

Holdings

1. Commerce's determination that China Steel exercised substantial control over Yieh Loong and that the companies were affiliated was supported by substantial evidence and was in accordance with law. The temporal aspect of the relationship was a factor to be considered but was not independently determinative.
2. Commerce properly determined that plaintiffs' aggregate home-market sales to affiliates substantially exceeded the five-percent threshold in 19 C.F.R. § 351.403(d) and therefore properly required plaintiffs to report downstream affiliate sales data.
3. Commerce properly applied an adverse inference under 19 U.S.C. § 1677e(b) after making the required objective and subjective findings that plaintiffs should have maintained the requested information and failed to use their maximum efforts to timely provide complete and accurate responses.
4. Commerce properly corroborated the 29.14-percent petition-based adverse-facts-available margin by comparing the petition's cost-of-manufacturing data with plaintiffs' own cost data and determining that the data were reasonably close.
5. The exhaustion doctrine did not bar review of plaintiffs' corroboration objections because Commerce first announced the challenged corroboration methodology in its final determination, leaving plaintiffs no practical opportunity to raise the objections before the agency.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Commerce's determination that China Steel and Yieh Loong were affiliated, and that the collapsed entity was affiliated with Yieh Loong's affiliates, complied with law and was supported by substantial evidence.
2. Whether Commerce properly determined that plaintiffs' sales to affiliates exceeded the five-percent threshold and could be used in calculating normal value.
3. Whether Commerce properly applied an adverse inference under 19 U.S.C. § 1677e(b) after finding that plaintiffs failed to cooperate to the best of their ability.
4. Whether Commerce properly corroborated the adverse-facts-available dumping margin under 19 U.S.C. § 1677e(c).
5. Whether the exhaustion doctrine barred judicial review of plaintiffs' corroboration objections.

Disposition

affirmed