SeAH Steel VINA Corp. v. United States
2018 CIT 98
Ct. Intl. Trade2018Background
- SeAH Steel VINA Corp. (SSV) challenged Commerce's antidumping duty determinations for oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from Vietnam; the case arrived after two prior remands to Commerce.
- On remand Commerce addressed three issues: surrogate value (SV) for J55-H hot-rolled coil; valuation of domestic inland insurance using an Agro Dutch worksheet; and allocation of domestic brokerage & handling (B&H) costs using the Doing Business India report.
- For J55-H, Commerce selected SSV's market-economy (ME) purchase prices (predating the period of investigation by ~6 months) adjusted by an inflator, rejecting a more contemporaneous but broader HTSUS basket category (7208.37.00) as insufficiently specific.
- For inland insurance, Commerce placed a more legible Agro Dutch worksheet on the record, removed a marine-insurance component it previously double-counted, corrected an inflation-index error, and used the worksheet to compute an inland-insurance SV.
- For B&H, Commerce allocated costs on a per-weight basis using Indian countrywide Doing Business data and other record material, rejecting SSV’s company-specific alternatives as inferior.
- The Court reviewed Commerce’s redetermination under the substantial-evidence and arbitrary-and-capricious standards and denied SSV’s overarching bad-faith claim.
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument | Defendant's Argument | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Choice of SV for J55-H coil | SSV: Use SSV's actual ME purchases (or prefer contemporaneous HTSUS data); a single September 2012 transaction shows J55 and J55-H priced equally. | Commerce: ME purchase data for J55-H, though pre-POI, is more specific; HTSUS 7208.37.00 is an overbroad basket category. | Court: Commerce reasonably preferred specificity over contemporaneity and properly adjusted ME purchases by inflation. |
| Inland insurance SV (Agro Dutch worksheet) | SSV: Agro Dutch data is illegible/ambiguous, conflates marine and inland insurance, and Commerce deprived SSV of due process by not reopening the record for rebuttal. | Commerce: Provided notice; SSV declined to rebut earlier; placed a legible worksheet on the record, removed marine insurance component, and corrected CPI conversion error. | Court: No due-process violation; Commerce’s interpretation of worksheet and adjustments are supported by record and reasonable. |
| Allocation of B&H costs (denominator and magnitude) | SSV: Commerce’s Doing Business–based per-ton results are aberrational (7–13x higher than company data); allocation should not assume proportionality to weight; reliance on Vietnamese contract fee structure is improper. | Commerce: Indian B&H costs vary widely; Doing Business is representative; record contains weight‑based charges; Commerce may mix sources and use countrywide data over individual company data. | Court: Substantial evidence supports Commerce’s weight-based allocation and use of Doing Business figures; results not aberrational. |
| Alleged bad faith by Commerce | SSV: Agency acted maliciously and engaged in results-driven rationalizations, warranting inference of bad faith. | Government: No direct evidence of subjective bad faith; high burden to prove and presumption of government good-faith. | Court: Rejected bad-faith claim for lack of clear and convincing evidence. |
Key Cases Cited
- Kilopass Tech., Inc. v. Sidense Corp., 738 F.3d 1302 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (discusses difficulty of proving subjective bad faith)
- In re 60 E. 80th St. Equities, Inc., 218 F.3d 109 (2d Cir. 2000) (bad-faith inference principles)
- SKF USA Inc. v. United States, 391 F. Supp. 2d 1327 (Ct. Int’l Trade 2005) (presumption of government good faith; burden to show bad faith)
- Changzhou Wujin Fine Chem. Factory Co. v. United States, 701 F.3d 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (standard of review for Commerce factual findings)
- Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (U.S. 1976) (flexible due-process analysis)
- DuPont Teijin Films USA, LP v. United States, 407 F.3d 1211 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (definition of substantial evidence)
- Consolo v. Federal Maritime Comm'n, 383 U.S. 607 (U.S. 1966) (possibility of two conflicting inferences does not defeat substantial evidence)
- Dorbest Ltd. v. United States, 462 F. Supp. 2d 1262 (Ct. Int’l Trade 2006) (Commerce may mix-and-match surrogate data and consider multiple factors when choosing SVs)
- Lasko Metal Prods., Inc. v. United States, 43 F.3d 1442 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (Commerce’s goal is best available information; mixing data sources is permissible)