Background
In 2016, the Department of Commerce and the International Trade Commission issued an antidumping-duty order on hot-rolled steel from Turkey after finding dumping and material injury. Following a remand, Commerce excluded one Turkish producer, Çolakoğlu, from the order due to a zero percent dumping margin. The plaintiff, Ereğli Demir ve Çelik Fabrikaları T.A.Ş., sought to revoke the order by requesting a changed-circumstances review, reconsideration of the 2016 injury finding, and challenging the Commission’s five-year sunset review determination that the order should remain in place.
The court’s reasoning
The court rejected the argument that the sunset review requires a retrospective reassessment of the original material-injury determination. The court reasoned that the statutory phrase continuation or recurrence of material injury presupposes that injury occurred and that the sunset review is forward-looking. Because the plaintiff did not timely challenge the 2016 determination in the Court of International Trade, that determination stands as a settled premise for the sunset review. The court also affirmed the dismissal of the changed-circumstances review challenge, noting the sunset review provided the same remedy, and the reconsideration challenge, finding the plaintiff had an adequate remedy under the original jurisdictional statute.
What it means going forward
The decision confirms that parties must timely challenge initial material-injury determinations in the Court of International Trade. It prevents the use of changed-circumstances reviews or reconsideration requests to bypass the statute of limitations for challenging original injury findings in subsequent sunset reviews.