Pipe Exporter Asks SCOTUS to Hear AD Scope Case
Exporter Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month to hear its antidumping duty scope case. The petition cast the lower court's decision sustaining the inclusion of its production in the scope of the AD order on circular welded carbon steel pipes and tubes from Thailand as a failure to apply the high court's recent decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which eliminated the principle of deferring to agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes (Saha Thai Steel Pipe Public Co. v. Wheatland Tube Co., Sup. Ct. 24-696).
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The petition said the case presents the court with the opportunity to answer two questions: (1) whether the lower courts erred by deferring to the Commerce Department the question of whether the International Trade Commission made the "requisite material injury determination" and (2) whether Commerce can use scope rulings to assess AD on goods for which the ITC didn't investigate material injury.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held in the case that the scope of the AD order unambiguously includes dual-stenciled pipe (see 2405150027). The scope language includes standard pipe but excludes line pipe, and Saha Thai's dual-stenciled pipes fit the industry specifications for both. Two of the three judges deciding the case found that meeting an additional specification for line pipe doesn't strip away the qualification of the pipes as standard pipes.
Saha Thai's petition said that the Federal Circuit "erroneously resolved a trade law question with significant legal and practical consequences on international trade and administrative law more generally" when it allowed Commerce to impose duties on goods that the ITC didn't say injure the U.S. industry. The exporter said CAFC "condoned" Commerce's "overreach" by letting the agency "impose antidumping duties on foreign merchandise based on Commerce’s supposedly [reasonable] interpretation of the Commission’s determination."
The move "created a gaping loophole in Congress’ dual-agency statutory framework that sidelines the Commission’s independent role in evaluating material injury," the brief said.
As the high court confirmed in Loper Bright, "courts must apply their own judgment in resolving all questions of law arising from any agency action," the petition said. "By simply deferring to Commerce’s interpretation of the Order, without looking directly to whether the material injury requirement was met, the majority in effect allowed Commerce (an executive agency) to displace the authority delegated by Congress to the Commission (an independent agency) -- disrupting Congress’ dual-agency statutory design."
The error "could embolden Commerce to impose antidumping duties via scope rulings on a variety of goods for which the Commission has never made a material injury determination, undermining the United States’ international trade obligations and creating bad precedent for other dual-agency frameworks," the brief said.