International Trade Law News

Published by Jacobson Burton Kelley PLLC

In Bethlehem Steel, et al. v. United States, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) recently remanded the ITC's 2000 final negative injury determination in antidumping and countervailing duty investigations involving cold-rolled steel products from Argentina, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela.

The Plaintiffs had challenged three aspects of the ITC’s investigation: (1) that the ITC improperly found that the captive production provision of 19 U.S.C. § 1677(7)(C)(iv) was inapplicable to the Final Determinations; (2) that the ITC improperly relied on information upon which the parties were not given an opportunity to comment; and (3) that the ITC’s findings concerning certain conditions of competition, and the volume and price effects of cold-rolled steel imports, were not supported by substantial evidence and otherwise in accordance with law.

The CIT found that the ITC’s interpretation of 19 U.S.C. § 1677(7)(C)(iv) was not in accordance with law and remanded the final decision to the ITC to define “internal transfers” consistent with the will of Congress. Additionally, the Court held that the ITC did not observe the proper procedure for applying facts otherwise available in its calculation of the overlap betweencaptively-produced downstream products and downstream products produced from merchant market sales. The Court remanded the Final Determinations and instructed the ITC to clarify how it complied with the statutory framework for applying facts otherwise available. If the ITC determines that it did not adhere to all of the statutory prerequisite conditions, then it must give the Plaintiffs an opportunity to remedy any deficiencies in their data. In addition, in light of the Court’s instruction to the ITC to reconsider its definition of “internal transfers,” the Court declined to rule on whether the Plaintiffs had an opportunity to comment on the perceived shift in methodology by the ITC. The CIT instructed the ITC to issue its findings on remand within 90 days.