Union Steel Manufacturing Co. v. United States, 190 F. Supp. 3d 1326

Background

Consolidated challenge to Commerce’s final results of the 15th administrative review of antidumping duties on certain corrosion-resistant carbon steel flat products from Korea (POR: Aug 1, 2007–Jul 31, 2008).
Plaintiffs: Union Steel, Hyundai HYSCO (mandatory respondents), Dongbu (unexamined respondent), and U.S. Steel (petitioner/intervenor); Nucor and others intervened for defendant.
Commerce’s Final Results initially assigned weighted-average dumping margins to Union (14.01%), HYSCO (3.29%), and an average to unexamined respondents (8.65%).
After judicial remands (Union Steel I and II), Commerce issued a Second Remand Redetermination adjusting margins (Union 9.83%, HYSCO 5.56%, Dongbu 7.70%) and reconsidering several methodological issues.
The Court reviewed the Second Remand Redetermination under the substantial evidence/agency discretion standard and affirmed Commerce’s determinations.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Interest-expense ratio: major-input adjustment and alleged double-counting (Nucor)	Nucor: major-input adjustment was improper and Commerce double-counted it in interest-expense ratio denominator.	Commerce: major-input adjustment to COM required a conforming COS denominator adjustment so the ratio applies to costs on same basis and avoids overstating allocated interest.	Affirmed — Commerce provided reasonable explanation; no party objected further.
Recovery-of-costs test for HYSCO (quarterly vs POR-wide)	HYSCO/Union: Commerce’s prior use of surrogate/indexed costs for quarters lacking CONNUM-specific costs violated statutory POR-wide weighted-average cost requirement.	Commerce: on remand relied on actual POR-weighted average costs using quarters with production; discontinued surrogate/indexing for recovery test.	Affirmed — change complies with Union Steel II and is reasonable.
Constructed value (CV) and DIFMER adjustments; use of unindexed quarterly costs and surrogate-based methods	Union/Dongbu: questioned using unindexed quarterly costs and surrogate methods for CV/DIFMER, arguing distortion and inconsistency.	Commerce: used unindexed quarterly CONNUM-specific costs for CV/DIFMER to be consistent with COP methodology; if no production in a quarter, used most-similar CONNUM’s material cost added to POR-weighted averages.	Affirmed — Commerce reasonably tied CV/DIFMER method to quarterly COP approach and explained surrogate use for missing-quarter production.
Date of sale for HYSCO U.S. sales (shipment date vs invoice date)	U.S. Steel: invoice date better reflects establishment of material terms; HYSCO argued shipment date established terms and Commerce departed from past practice.	Commerce: on remand found invoice date appropriate because record (including HYSCO’s statements) shows price/quantity could change after shipment; applied 19 C.F.R. § 351.401(i).	Affirmed — substantial evidence supports that material terms could change after shipment; invoice date used.
Selection of contemporaneous month (shortening 90/60-day window to quarter; hierarchy)	Union/Dongbu: Commerce improperly departed from regulation’s hierarchy (§ 351.414(e)(2)) and reduced identical matches, harming accuracy.	Commerce: costs changed significantly (≥25%) and correlated with prices; shortened window to same quarter to reduce time-distortion and preserve consistency with quarterly COP/CV/DIFMER; preserved an intra-quarter matching hierarchy and adopted a predictable standard approach.	Affirmed — Commerce acted within discretion, supported by record findings on significant cost changes and correlation with prices; rational explanation for quarterly window.

Key Cases Cited

Union Steel Mfg. Co., Ltd. v. United States, 837 F. Supp. 2d 1307 (CIT 2012) (addressing Commerce’s quarterly cost methodology and comparison-window issues)
Union Steel Mfg. Co., Ltd. v. United States, 968 F. Supp. 2d 1297 (CIT 2014) (remanding First Remand Redetermination and identifying issues for Commerce to reconsider)