SUMMARY

On January 18, 2001, the U.S. Court of International Trade ("the Court") remanded the above-referenced proceeding to the Department of Commerce ("the Department") for reconsideration of the following issue: (1) to explain why the Department's duty drawback methodology, which employed facts available, is consistent with the objectives of the facts available provision, 19 U.S.C. § 1677(e)(a), and accounts for gaps in respondent's information; or alternatively calculate a new duty drawback adjustment which is consistent with this objective. On February 14, 2001, the Department issued its Draft Results of Redetermination to the plantiff and defendant intervenor to comment. Neither party submitted comments to the Department.

In the Draft Results of Redetermination, we reconsidered our methodology in accordance with the Court's order and determined that the simple average methodology applied does not adequately function as a modified duty drawback adjustment for respondent. Therefore, we recalculated the adjustment using the weighted average of the duty drawback unit values by invoice. Neither Party submitted comments to the Department on the Draft Results of Redetermination; therefore, these Final Remand Results are identical to the Draft Remand Results and are discussed in detail below.

BACKGROUND

On October 21, 1999, the Department published its final results for the administrative review of Certain Welded Carbon Steel Pipes and Tubes from Thailand for the period March 1, 1997, through February 28, 1998. See Notice of Final Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative: Certain Welded Carbon Steel Pipes and Tubes From Thailand, 64 FR 56759 (October 21, 1999) ("Final Results").

DISCUSSION

In the Final Results, the Department used, as facts available, a simple average of respondent's, Saha Thai's, claimed invoice amounts for cash and guarantee-based duty drawback to calculate Saha Thai's duty drawback. The methodology applied in the Final Results increased the total amount of duty drawback claimed by respondent. In its opinion, the Court affirmed the Department's determination that respondent was entitled to a duty drawback adjustment to its export price, and also supported the Department's use of facts otherwise available in determining the appropriate adjustment. However, the Court remanded the duty drawback adjustment issue to the Department with directions to either explain its duty drawback calculation methodology or, in the alternative, recalculate the adjustment. The Court stated that the Department did not explain how its use of facts available corrects the problem of reliance on Saha Thai's claimed adjustment, i.e., excessive drawback adjustment from inclusion of bank guarantee fees, and drawback adjustment exceeding the actual amounts rebated.

METHODOLOGY

As noted above, the Department's use of a simple average in calculating a facts available duty drawback amount resulted in an increase in the total amount of duty drawback claimed by the respondent. The Department had intended through the use of this approach, to apply neutral facts available by decreasing those duty drawback amounts that were above the calculated average. However, because the invoice tonnage amounts were not taken into account in the calculation of the average, the Department's methodology resulted in an overall increase in the total duty drawback amount claimed by the respondent. Therefore, in order to more appropriately apply facts available to this duty drawback calculation, the Department is recalculating the duty drawback amount to be applied to the relevant invoices by weight-averaging the reported cash and guarantee-based duty drawback amounts by invoice quantity. This results in a weighted-average figure for duty drawback which is less than the previously-calculated figure. See Attachment 1. This methodology properly accounts for the tonnages in each invoice and results in a more appropriate application of facts available because the total duty drawback amount is not increased above that which the respondent reported. The methodology is consistent with the facts available provision because, although it need not be the "best available information," Statement of Administrative Action at 869, reprinted in 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 4198, based on evidence on the record the use of a weighted average, as opposed to a simple average, more appropriately accounts for the gap in respondent's information, thus promoting greater accuracy in the margin calculation.

FINAL RESULTS OF REDETERMINATION

We have recalculated the dumping margin for respondent based upon the changes set forth above. Accordingly, for these final results pursuant to the Court remand, the recalculated weighted-average margin for the period of March 1, 1997 through February 28, 1998, is as follows:

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Timothy J. Hauser
Acting Under Secretary
  for International Trade

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(Date)