Solar Panel Importer Challenges Assessment of AD/CVD on Vietnam Solar Cells Under China Order
Importer Greentech Energy Solutions is challenging CBP's decision to assess antidumping and countervailing duties on its 2019 imports of solar modules from Vietnam, despite no finding of dumping, subsidization or injury for Vietnam, nor even the existence of an an anti-circumvention inquiry at that time, Greentech said in a June 9 complaint at the Court of International Trade (Greentech Energy Solutions v. United States, CIT # 23-00118).
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The demand for duty payments violated a "hallmark principle of U.S. law" which has existed for almost 100 years and the Constitution's Eighth Amendment covering excessive penalties, the company said.
The U.S. based its collection of the duties on Greentech's inability to hand the government "importer and exporter certifications completed, signed, and dated at the time of shipment from Vietnam and the time of entry into the U.S. of solar modules." The U.S. said the certifications are needed for Vietnamese imports despite the fact that the certification provision was set in the AD duty investigation on solar cells from China and were intended to exempt Chinese modules made from third-country cells.
Greentech said there also was no anti-circumvention finding, and the company "submitted documentation showing that the merchandise was produced and exported from Vietnam and, thus, not subject to the China AD/CVD orders."
Should the court find that the U.S. had the authority to require that the company maintain certificates for imports from Vietnam, the court must grant either of Greentech's alternate grounds. First, Commerce improperly treated the company's inability to provide certificates completed, signed and dated at the time of shipment as proof, despite evidence showing the solar modules were made in Vietnam. Greentech also said the duties are "excessive fines for what is nothing more than a simple failure to have contemporaneously dated certificates."