Commerce Agrees to Reinstate Vietnamese Solar Cell Exporter in Certification Program
The Commerce Department agreed to remove a prohibition on Red Sun Energy Long An Co. that had blocked the exporter from using the agency's exclusion certification process to enter its solar cells duty-free from Vietnam. The parties filed a stipulation for judgment with the Court of International Trade on Nov. 1, ending Red Sun's challenge to Commerce's anti-circumvention finding on solar cells from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam (Red Sun Energy Long An Co. v. United States, CIT # 23-00229).
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Commerce hit Red Sun with adverse facts available in the proceeding, which led to the company's "exclusion from being able to certify its products as non-subject merchandise under Commerce's determination that solar modules from Vietnam were circumventing the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on solar modules from China." The agency presumed all shipments from Vietnam were circumventing the orders, imposing an exclusion certification process to allow certain modules to enter free of duty.
The agency used AFA against Red Sun for failing to timely respond to the agency's initial quantity and value questionnaire, excluding it from taking part in the certification process. The exporter said it pro se filed its response, but it didn't upload, "and the record is unclear as to why that happened."
The U.S. said it will remove Red Sun from the list of companies barred from the certification process and tell CBP that importers and exporters can use the certifications for Vietnam-origin cells and modules from Red Sun entered on or after April 1, 2022.