Russian Exporter Takes to CIT Over ITC Injury Finding on Oil Country Tubular Goods
Russian exporter TMK Group on Jan. 20 filed a complaint at the Court of International Trade on the International Trade Commission's injury finding on oil country tubular goods (OCTG) from Russia that led to the imposition of a countervailing duty order on the goods. The three-count complaint challenges the commission's decision to cumulate imports from Russia with imports from Brazil, Mexico and South Korea; its analysis of South Korea's imports in the cumulation analysis; and its decision that material injury to the domestic industry was "by reason of imports" (TMK Group v. United States, CIT # 22-00346).
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The decision to cumulate imports from Russia, Brazil, Mexico and South Korea was "arbitrary and capricious" because the ITC "failed to properly address arguments and evidence on the record that Russian imports of subject merchandise were virtually excluded from the United States marketplace after February 2022," the complaint said. The imports were effectively barred from the U.S. via "a combination of regulations, sanctions, and other obstacles that prevented such products from meaningfully competing with subject merchandise from Argentina, Mexico, and South Korea and with domestically-produced subject merchandise," the exporter said.
The analysis of South Korea's imports in the cumulation analysis violated the law since the ITC included all imports from South Korea as opposed to just the imports from the exporter SeAH Steel, TMK Group said. SeAH was found to have received subsidies, based on adverse facts available, and the other respondent received de minimis subsidies, yet its imports were included nonetheless.
TMK Group railed against the commission's finding that injury to the domestic industry was "by reason of imports," claiming the ITC failed to properly evaluate the arguments on the record over the competition conditions within the oil country tubular goods marketplace that show any harm was from competition conditions in the market. These conditions include a huge demand drop from the COVID-19 pandemic, high inventory levels held by distributors, high hot-rolled coil prices and supply constraints. The commission also illegally "attributed evidence of post-petition improvement of domestic industry performance to the filing of the petition rather than changes in the conditions of competition within the OCTG marketplace as a whole," the brief said.