Commerce Can't Extend AFA Rate to Non-Selected Respondents in AD Review, Exporters Say
The Commerce Department's preliminary application of an adverse facts available rate for a mandatory respondent to more than 40 non-selected respondents in an antidumping duty administrative review on stainless steel flanges from India violates the agency's obligation to calculate accurate…
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rates, the lawyer for some of those non-selected respondents said in a May 4 letter to the agency. Peter Koenig of Squire Patton criticized the agency's practice of selecting a limited number of mandatory respondents in antidumping reviews, finding AFA on the respondents, then applying the erroneously reached higher dumping rate to all other respondents. He noted that, in a recent case involving Jilin Forest Industry Jinqiao Flooring Group, CIT found that this use of Commerce's "Mandatory Respondent Exception" goes against its statutory intention, which was to determine an "accurate all-others rate, based on a weighted average of rates determined for mandatory respondents" (see 2104300079). "Commerce should accurately calculate Chandan’s dumping margin, if not for Chandan (as should), but then for the 44 other Indian companies to whom Commerce is applying the Chandan dumping margin," Koenig's letter said. Chandan, the mandatory respondent, was assigned a 140.38% antidumping duty rate in the preliminary results of the review issued in February, and that rate was also extended to the non-selected respondents.