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Commerce Should Limit Seasonality to Company, Apply Retroactive Duties to Rest of Industry, Petitioner Says

The Commerce Department should continue to apply retroactive suspension of liquidation to all non-individually examined respondents in its antidumping duty investigation on pentafluoroethane (R-125) from China, even though the agency found a mandatory respondent’s selling behavior did not warrant critical circumstances because of a seasonal sales pattern, Honeywell International, petitioner in the case, said in a brief filed Oct. 26.

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A-Gas had argued that the entire R-125 industry is shaped by seasonal surges in demand, and so Commerce’s seasonality finding should apply to all Chinese companies (see 2110210035). It said Honeywell agreed on the industry’s seasonal nature. Honeywell disagreed.

“In arguing that the Department should take the drastic step of imputing its findings with respect to critical circumstances for Sanmei to all other interested parties, including those for the non-responsive companies, A-Gas states that ‘Petitioner effectively concedes seasonality generally for the R-125 market in the United States.’ This is false. Simply put, no other interested party submitted information regarding the impact of seasonality on their respective imports during the POI.”

“The record remains unchanged in this respect since the preliminary determination,” Honeywell said. “Therefore, the Department must continue to find that critical circumstances exist with respect to the non-selected companies and the China-wide entity (including Juxin) for the final determination.”