Wind Tower Exporter Challenges Use of Cost 'Smoothing' in AD Admin Review
The Commerce Department erred by calculating a single weighted-averge steel plate cost for all home and U.S. market sales in the 2020-21 antidumping duty administrative review on utility scale wind towers from South Korea, respondent Dongkuk S&C Co. argued in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. In the review, Commerce disregarded the actual steel plate costs linked with each individual project, via cost "smoothing" (Dongkuk S&C Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00075).
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Dongkuk said Commerce should reverse this decision since the company directly assigns its steel plate costs to each individual project and traces the steel plate purchases to finished projects via its inventory records. Dongkuk added that steel plate costs are directly related to differences in the physical characteristics of the products, making "smoothing" an illegal move.
"Commerce’s determination to calculate a single weighted-average steel plate cost for all home market and U.S. market sales during the POR, despite substantial record evidence demonstrating that DKSC directly assigned steel plate costs to each individual project and thus could trace the steel plate purchases to specific sales through its inventory records because of the project-based nature of utility scale wind towers, was unreasonable, unsupported by substantial record evidence, and otherwise not in accordance with law," the complaint said. Dongkuk was assigned a 2.49% dumping margin in the review.