The US Court of International Trade upheld the US Department of Commerce’s decision of imposing anti-dumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) on aluminium extrusions from China. The court, however, concluded that retroactive application of determination to the date of Initiation Notice rather than to the date of Preliminary Determination for exports from China-based companies, Taishan or imported into the United States by TAAL America Ltd was against the US Commerce’s rules.
US Commerce published the final circumvention determination on July 26, 2017. The probe found that certain heat treated, extruded aluminium products exported from China that met the chemical specification for 5050 grade aluminium alloy avoided AD and CVD. Following this determination, Taishan and TAAL (Tai-Ao) and Regal Ideas filed an action before the US Court of International Trade challenging US Commerce’s ruling.
The court affirmed US Commerce’s determination of avoidance of duties in June 2019 but asked it to amend the final CVD determination with respect to certain importers as it found that Commerce had mistakenly retroactively applied determination from the date of Initiation Notice (Mar 21, 2016) rather than the date of Preliminary Determination (Nov 13, 2016). With respect to Regal, it was found that during the period no applicable imported occurred.
In July, US Commerce issued its results of re-determination and expressed an intent to instruct the US Customs and Border Protection that entries of extruded aluminium products entered or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption during March 21 through Nov 13, 2016 and remain unliquidated as of Sep 15, 2017 remain outside the scope of this order.