Court Opinion

ID: 9480264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:42:44.523246+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:34.425713
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with much of the court’s analysis. However, I do not believe that the Commission was correct in refusing to cu-mulate the unfairly traded steel shapes from Spain and Poland with the unfairly traded structural steel shapes from Norway, for the period during which they all met the statutory requirements:
19 U.S.C. § 1677(7)(C)(iv) Cumulation. — For purposes of clauses (i) [volume] and (ii) [price], the Commission shall cumulatively assess the volume and price effect of imports from two or more countries of like products subject to investigation if such imports compete with each other and with like products of the domestic industry in the United States market.
The result is that Norway, a found “dumper” at a margin of 13.7% less than fair value, Carbon Steel Structural Shapes from Norway, 50 Fed.Reg. 42,975 (Dep’t Comm.1985), is freed of the statutorily mandated consequences of its unfair trade practices.
I believe that neither the Commission nor the Court of International Trade was entirely correct, in that the Court of International Trade identified too broad a time period for cumulation with the Norwegian imports, while the Commission’s view was too narrow. In my view the Commission erred in refusing to cumulate the unfairly traded steel structural shapes imported from Norway with the unfairly traded steel structural shapes imported from Spain and Poland, for the period during which these imports were all subject to investigation.
There are three periods of time that are pertinent to this analysis, each involving different circumstances.
*1107A
The first time period is the period of investigation before entry of the Norwegian steel structural shapes into the United States market.
The investigation by the International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce, commenced in 1982. Imports of steel structural shapes from South Africa and from Spain in 1982 and 1983 were found to be subsidized, and countervailing duties were levied. Certain Carbon Steel Products from South Africa, 47 Fed.Reg. 39,379 (Dep’t Comm.1982); Certain Carbon Steel Products from Spain, 48 Fed. Reg. 525,529 (Dep’t Comm.1983). The subsidized imports on which duties were levied in 1982 and 1983 were not shown to have competed with Norwegian imports in the United States market, for the Norwegian imports first appeared in 1984 and the issue of residual market effects of these South African and Spanish imports was not raised on the record before us.
Thus I agree with the panel majority that these 1982 and 1983 South African and Spanish subsidized imports should not have been cumulated with the later Norwegian imports for the purpose of injury determination. I would reverse this part of the holding of the Court of International Trade.
B
There was a period, starting in 1984, during which unfair imports from Norway, Spain, and Poland were all subject to investigation and were all in competition with each other and the domestic industry, thus fully meeting the statutory requirements of 19 U.S.C. § 1677(7)(C)(iv). The precise outer edges of this period of competition are not clear on the record before us; but that there exists a core period was established.
This core period is the period when unfair imports of all three countries were competing in the United States market, pri- or to entry by the United States into Voluntary Restraint Agreements with Spain and Poland. The imports from Poland were found on preliminary determination to be sold in the United States at a margin of 59.96% less than fair value. Carbon Steel Structural Shapes from Poland, 50 Fed. Reg. 23,329 (Dep’t Comm.1985). The steel structural shapes from Spain were found on final determination to be sold at varying margins of less than fair value.1 Certain Carbon Steel Products from Spain, 49 Fed.Reg. 48,582, 48,587 (Dep’t Comm.1984). The imports from Norway were found on final determination to be sold at a margin of 13.7% less than fair value. Carbon Steel Structural Shapes from Norway, 50 Fed.Reg. 42,975 (Dep’t Comm.1985). Material injury to the domestic industry was found by the Commission. Carbon Steel Structural Shapes from Norway, USITC Pub. 1785, p. 6, Inv. No. 731-TA-234 (Nov. 1985).
The unfair imports of these three countries, although all were present in the market during this period and thus squarely within the terms of 19 U.S.C. § 1677(7)(C)(iv), were ignored by the Commission, which held that imports from Spain and Poland were not to be counted in the injury determination with respect to the imports from Norway because the imports from Spain and Poland were no longer “subject to investigation” on the Norway “vote day”. In administering § 1677(7)(C)(iv), the Commission treated the imports at less than fair value from Spain and Poland as if they had never occurred, simply by “voting” on Norway on a date after Spain and Poland had entered into Voluntary Restraint Agreements.
The Court of International Trade rejected the Commission’s view that Poland, because it entered into a VRA after the preliminary determination of sales at 59.96% less than fair value, was thereby excluded from cumulation for the period before it entered into the VRA. There is logic to the position of the Court of International Trade that the absence of a final determination “affects the weight and credibility of the *1108evidence [of dumping], not its overall relevance”. That court recognized that there are various reasons why a preliminary determination might not have become final: at one extreme, further investigation might not have confirmed the calculation; and at the other extreme, as here, the dumping might have led to a Voluntary Restraint Agreement. The approach of the Court of International Trade simply took the actual circumstances into account.
It is argued that because the investigations as to Spain and Poland were terminated by VRAs, there was no final determination of injury. But the requirement of a final determination of injury is the antithesis of the purpose of the cumulation statute, which is to reach those situations where individual imports do not cause injury. The cumulation statute is designed to reach those situations “where the impact of imports treated individually is minimal but the combined impact is injurious”, provided only that the marketing of the cumulated imports is “reasonably coincident”. H.R. Rep. No. 725, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 37, reprinted in 1984 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 5127, 5164.
The Spanish steel structural shapes were the subject of a final determination of sales at less than fair value. Certain Carbon Steel Products from Spain, 49 Fed.Reg. 48,582 (Dept.Comm.1984). Even under the Commission’s requirement that there be a final determination of dumping, these imports should have been cumulated with the Norwegian imports for the period before Spain entered into a Voluntary Restraint Agreement. Since Spain was by far the largest dumper, this aspect is not insignificant.2 Although Congress, in considering proposed versions of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, Pub.L. No. 100-418, 102 Stat. 1107, declined to enact further rules on the details of cumu-lation, this can not be taken to mean that Congress intended by this inaction to restrict cumulation in accordance with the existing law.
The Court of International Trade thus correctly held that the effects of the unfairly traded Norwegian, Spanish, and Polish imports should be cumulated for the period in which they competed with each other and with the domestic industry, and for that period I would affirm the court’s ruling. Injury to the domestic industry during this period was shown. The Commission’s refusal to cumulate the effects of the Polish and Spanish imports with the Norwegian imports during this core period simply insulates the Norwegian imports from the reach of the statute: contrary to the intent of Congress and the plain text of § 1677(7)(C)(iv).
The appellants argue that the purpose of the trade law is to address only present and future injury, not past injury, and therefore that competing steel structural shapes imported prior to the Norwegian “vote day” are irrelevant to the statutory purpose. This argument misperceives the statute. The statute mandates that the effects of unfair trade acts, which necessarily are past acts, be cumulated to determine their combined injurious effect on the domestic industry. Past acts that caused or threatened injury, 19 U.S.C. § 1673b(a), can not be ignored in their entirety simply because the “vote day” as to injury is after some of the injurious acts were corrected prospectively by VRA’s.3 The statute requires cumulation of those acts that contributed to injury before they were corrected. The legislative purpose of the cumulation provision was “to ensure that the injury test adequately addresses simultaneous unfair imports from different countries”. H.R.Rep. No. 725, supra. The exclusion of the Polish and Spanish unfair imports from the Norway injury test, during the period *1109in which they were all unfairly traded, is contrary to the statute and the legislative purpose.
C
The third period of time to be considered is the period after the entry into the VRA’s with Spain and Poland, when imports from these countries are no longer deemed unfairly traded.
The Court of International Trade gave weight to the residual effect of these terminated unfair trade practices in reviewing the question of cumulative injury to the domestic industry. That court referred to the “hammering effect” of unfair imports, and the concerns expressed in City Lumber Co. v. United States, 311 F.Supp. 340, 343 (Cust.Ct.1970), aff'd, 457 F.2d 991 (CCPA 1972), and in USX Corp. v. United States, 655 F.Supp. 487 (Ct.Int’l Trade 1987).
In view of the Commission’s affirmative finding that the domestic industry “continues to be materially injured”, Carbon Steel Structural Shapes from Norway, USITC Pub. 1785, p. 6, Inv. No. 731-TA-234 (Nov. 1985), the refusal of the Commission to consider whether there was any residual effect of the Polish and Spanish imports is not only deficient as a matter of economic analysis, but is contrary to the legislative enactment. I believe the Court of International Trade was correct in its holding that residual effects, if any, should be considered in the determination of whether the Norwegian sales at less than fair value contributed to cumulative injury, for any portion of the period after Spain and Poland entered into the'VRAs.

. One manufacturer had an estimated margin of 27.44%, another of zero, and the other manufacturers/producers/exporters an average of 16.17% less than fair value.

. For the year 1984 the "Ratio of imports to apparent U.S. consumption" was 1.0 for Norway, 0.9 for Poland, and 5.0 for Spain. Carbon Steel Structural Shapes from Norway, USITC Pub. 1785, Inv. No. 731-TA-234 (Nov. 1985).

. The purpose of the cumulation statute is not to punish past acts. In this case cumulation can have no effect whatsoever on Spain and Poland, for those countries’ unfair imports had been corrected by VRA’s. As to Norway, cumulation simply aids in the determination of injury to the domestic industry, and allows remediation of the impact of the unfair Norwegian imports.