Dec 18th, 2023

Trade Updates for Week of December 13, 2023


UNITED STATES COURT OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Before the Court in Trina Solar (Changzhou) Science & Technology Co., Ltd., et al. v. United States (defendant) and American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing (defendant-intervenor), Court No. 23-00219, Slip Op. 23-174 (December 12, 2023) was a consent motion to remand to the United States Department of Commerce. All parties in the case consented to the motion and the court remanded with additional guidance as welcomed by the Government.

The case turned on a sole issue concerning the ocean freight benchmark for calculation of a subsidy based on less than adequate remuneration (“LTAR”). The court ordered that upon remand, Commerce should consider the court’s ruling in Risen Energy Co. v. United States, Slip Op. 23-48, 2023 WL 2890019 (CIT Apr. 11, 2023), 570 F. Supp. 3d 1369, 1372 (CIT 2022).  In that opinion, the court found that the remand results had set standards not appropriately applied to that particular factual record. As to the land value and ocean freight, Commerce in that case had not properly considered the quality of data sets it had averaged. The court concluded that defects in data sets were not cured by averaging with better data and remanded to commerce for further determination consisted with that opinion.

In this case, the court ordered Commerce to also consider the statutory preference for a broadly based ocean freight rate for an LTAR benchmark. In the case that other facts outweigh that interest here and compel the use of a single rate source, the court ordered that Commerce explain with as much numerical evidence as possible why that is appropriate. Lastly, the court said that Commerce should use a multiple route data base with such adjustments as are necessary and possible in the absence of its ability to concretely explain a strong reason for a single rate source.