BlueScope Steel Ltd. and its wholly owned U.S. importer, BlueScope Steel Americas, said in a complaint Tuesday in the U.S. Court of International Trade that Commerce botched their final duty rate by refusing to deduct certain rebates and discounts from their home market sales.

"The final determination is not supported by substantial evidence on the record and is otherwise not in accordance with law," BlueScope Steel said.

Commerce initially assessed a 7.96% tariff against BlueScope Steel during its administrative review of an anti-dumping duty order on Australian hot-rolled steel flat products. In calculating that preliminary rate, Commerce deducted all the rebates and discounts that BlueScope Steel said it had offered its customers, according to the complaint.

However, a group of U.S. steel companies argued against that treatment, saying BlueScope Steel hadn't shown it was entitled to claim those rebates.

Under a federal regulation, Commerce deducts rebates that are known to the customer and are customer-specific. In a memo explaining its final 9.94% dumping margin, Commerce agreed with the domestic companies that BlueScope Steel hadn't shown it had set the terms and conditions of the rebates with customers before making a sale.

But BlueScope Steel urged the CIT to deem the final results unlawful, saying Commerce had misunderstood the rebate information it had submitted.

It also accused Commerce of wrongly allowing the domestic companies to raise the rebate issue after the preliminary results were released. The domestic companies had received BlueScope Steel's rebate data "nearly an entire year" before Commerce issued its initial findings, and should have flagged the rebate issue then, BlueScope Steel said in an April 6 brief.

Representatives for Commerce and BlueScope Steel didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

BlueScope Steel is represented by Daniel Porter, Christopher Dunn and Ana Amador of Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP.

The U.S. is represented by Kelly Ann Krystyniak of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Division and Spencer Neff of Commerce's Office of Chief Counsel for Trade Enforcement and Compliance.

The case is BlueScope Steel Ltd. et al. v. U.S., case number 1:21-cv-00509, in the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Source: Law360