Background
CS Wind Malaysia, a Malaysian producer of utility-scale wind towers, and its South Korean parent challenged the Department of Commerce’s administrative review of a countervailing-duty order. The Court of International Trade previously remanded two issues: Commerce’s use of Malaysian land-rental data to assess whether CS Wind Malaysia’s government lease provided adequate remuneration, and its denial of an entered-value adjustment.
On remand, Commerce continued to average two land-price datasets: a private transaction reported by Ellis involving property in Penang and Malaysian government data involving transactions in the region where CS Wind operated. Commerce also continued to deny the entered-value adjustment after changing its methodology to focus on U.S. sales and explaining that CS Wind’s invoices could not reliably establish entered values. Commerce therefore left the company’s subsidy rate unchanged.
The Court’s Holding
The court sustained Commerce’s denial of the entered-value adjustment as lawful and supported by substantial evidence. Commerce adequately explained that it compares U.S. invoice values with customs documentation to determine whether an adjustment is warranted for marked-up entered values. For two sampled transactions, CS Wind supplied no Customs Forms 7501 or alternative customs records; for the other two, the invoices did not match the entered values on the customs forms, and the discrepancies varied in amount and direction.
The court rejected CS Wind’s contention that the discrepancies were too small to matter, explaining that weighing their significance was for Commerce, not the court. It also concluded that Commerce did not improperly disregard submitted information under 19 U.S.C. § 1677m(d): the agency reviewed the evidence and found it insufficient, and seeking missing documents would have been futile because CS Wind acknowledged that it did not maintain them.
The court also sustained Commerce’s land-price benchmark. Commerce considered the price disparity between Penang and Pahang but reasonably found that price differences alone did not make the Penang data unusable, particularly because government subsidies could explain lower prices in Pahang. Given flaws in both sources, Commerce reasonably averaged them, relying on the private nature of the Ellis transaction and the government dataset’s geographic relevance and multiple sales.
Key Takeaways
- Commerce may require invoice values to match customs records before treating invoices as reliable proxies for entered value.
- A respondent’s characterization of pricing discrepancies as minor does not permit the court to reweigh the administrative record.
- Land-price differences do not automatically make benchmark transactions incomparable; Commerce must consider comparability factors but need not treat any single factor as dispositive.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms Commerce’s discretion to demand reliable transaction-level documentation before granting an entered-value adjustment designed to prevent overcollection of countervailing duties. Missing customs records and inconsistent invoice-to-entry comparisons can defeat an adjustment even when the respondent characterizes the discrepancies as small.
It also reinforces Commerce’s ability to combine imperfect benchmark datasets when the agency identifies each source’s strengths and weaknesses and reasonably explains why the transactions remain sufficiently comparable.