United States Court of International Trade

Final Determination Regarding Prestressed Steel Rail Tie Wire from Thailand Remanded in Part

In Davis Wire Coporation and Insteel Wire v. United States, Court No. 14-131, Slip Op. 16-63 (June 28, 2016), plaintiffs Davis Wire Corp. and Insteel Wire Products Company challenged a negative less-than-fair-value determination (“Final Determination”) that the International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) issued to conclude an antidumping duty investigation of prestressed concrete steel rail tie wire (“PC tie wire”) from Thailand. Final Determination of Sales at Not Less than Fair Value: Prestressed Concrete Steel Rail Tie Wire from Thailand, 79 Fed. Reg. 25,574 (Int’l Trade Admin. May 5, 2014) (“Final Determination”). In the Final Determination, Commerce calculated a 0.00% weighted-average dumping margin for Siam Industrial Wire Company, Ltd. (“SIW”), a Thai producer and exporter of PC tie wire. Because SIW was the sole company investigated, Commerce terminated the investigation without issuing an antidumping duty order. SIW was the defendant-intervenor in this action. Plaintiffs were U.S. producers of PC tie wire and were the petitioners in the investigation.

While the court sustained most of the Final Determination findings, including whether South Africa was a viable comparison market, it asked for remand on the following issues.  First, the court remanded Commerce’s weighted average cost calculation to allow Commerce to reconsider “the cost of production issue relative to 13 mm diameter Grade 82B from SIW’s PC Strand Division.” Defendant asked for a voluntary remand on this issue, and the court confirmed that this was a substantial question as to whether the Commerce correctly excluded wired input obtained from the Strand Division. Second, there was nothing in the record to substantiate Commerce’s findings that Tata Steel was paid for its IT services provided to SIW in the period of investigation.  If this is the case then the G&A expense ratio must be adjusted to account for such expenses.

For these reasons, the court remanded the Final Determination back to Commerce.