Commerce Illegally Applied More Lenient Standard to Untimely Ministerial Comments, Exporter Says
The Commerce Department applied a more lenient standard to antidumping duty petitioner Nucor Tubular Products by accepting a correction to a ministerial error that was raised only after the final results in the 2018-19 administrative review of the AD order on heavy walled rectangular welded steel pipes and tubes from Mexico was issued, respondent Maquilacero argued in comments to the Court of International Trade on Commerce's remand results accepting the correction (Nucor Tubular Products v. U.S., CIT # 21-00543).
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The respondent said Commerce "applied a relaxed standard that conflicts with the applicable regulation" and also "may have acted under the misunderstanding that it was required by this Court to correct the ministerial error alleged by Nucor and recalculate the dumping margin with respect to Maquilacero, whereas the Court directed Commerce to provide adequate consideration to Nucor’s allegation."
Nucor said Commerce converted home market price fields to U.S. dollars in the SAS software margin program but failed to do so for home market packing and inventory carrying costs. The agency also converted home market net price a second time to dollars, leading to an errant calculation of foreign unit price in dollars. Nucor requested the foreign unit price in dollars be revised to exclude the double conversion. Commerce did so on remand.
The trade court said Commerce can't reject the ministerial corrections as untimely. Maquilacero said the court's order "did not preclude Commerce from reviewing the substance of Nucor’s comments as they pertain to Maquilacero and assess whether they are indeed a ministerial error in the Final Results and if so, warrant a correction." The respondent said this error already existed in the preliminary results, still making Nucor's comments untimely.