Thai Plastic Bags Indus. Co., Ltd. v. United States, No. 14-1237 (Fed. Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseThe Thai government provides BCR program rebates to domestic manufacturers who produce and export products made from raw materials imported by domestic suppliers. TPBI manufactures polyethylene retail carrier bags in Thailand and exports them to the U.S. TPBI obtains resin from Thai domestic suppliers, who import raw materials for producing resin and pay associated import duties. To account for those duties, TPBI pays a fee to resin suppliers in exchange for certificates, which are provided to the Thai government upon export of finished products, in exchange for BCR rebates. The Department of Commerce determined that the bags were being sold in the U.S. at less than fair value and issued an antidumping duty order. Years later, Commerce conducted administrative review of that order. TPBI argued that the BCR program provided compensation for the fees paid to its suppliers and that BCR revenue should be subsumed into production costs. Commerce determined that the BCR program related to export sales rather than production costs, and declined to adjust TPBI’s cost of production. Commerce noted that BCR revenues are “somewhat analogous” to duty drawbacks, where an adjustment to the U.S. price of the product would correct for an imbalance resulting from import duties that are factored into home market prices but either rebated or not collected for exported products, but that TPBI had not claimed BCR revenue as a duty drawback. Commerce determined the antidumping margin without an offset in TPBI’s cost of production. The Court of International Trade and Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that BCR revenue was export-conditional, not relevant to the cost of production.
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