CIT Again Finds Thai Bearings Not Subject to AD Duties Without Circumvention Analysis
The Court of International Trade on Dec. 21 approved two Commerce Department redeterminations finding ball bearings imported from Thailand are not subject to antidumping duties on tapered roller bearings from China (here) and (here), reiterating its recent stance that Commerce must in some cases conduct anti-circumvention inquiries in order to apply AD duties to third-country merchandise.
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Commerce conducted the redeterminations under protest after its findings in two administrative reviews were rejected by the court in June 2014 (see 14061203). Commerce found bearings made in Thailand by a Peer Bearing Company affiliate were subject to AD duties on bearings from China. It said the grinding and honing in Thailand of the Chinese-origin inputs did not effect a “substantial transformation,” so the goods were still of Chinese origin and subject to duties. CIT, noting the scope of the AD duties does not include bearings made in third-countries, ruled that Commerce had in effect expanded the scope without performing any analysis of whether the Thai bearings were circumventing the duties.
As it affirmed Commerce’s remand redetermination, it clarified that Commerce must not always conduct a circumvention inquiry in order to conclude that merchandise further processed in a third country is subject to an AD duty order. Instead, it concluded “that in the absence of such an analysis Commerce must interpret scope language reasonably and may not expand it.” In the case of Peer Bearing’s product, the evidence “was not sufficient to support the determination that the [tapered roller bearings] in question are within the scope when the scope language is reasonably, and not expansively, interpreted.”