BlueScope loses court challenge of HR sunset review

In the 2021-22 sunset review of the duties, the International Trade Commission (ITC) cumulatively assessed hot-rolled steel imports from Australia alongside the same imports from other countries in the review – Japan, South Korea, Netherlands, Russia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Brazil was the only country in the review that didn’t have its shipments cumulated with the others.

The sunset review resulted in the removal of the antidumping duty (AD) order on Brazilian HR but the continuation of duties on HR from the other seven countries.

Sunset challenge

On Jan. 1, 2023, BlueScope Steel and its US affiliates, BlueScope Steel Americas and North Star BlueScope, challenged the ITC’s decision to cumulate the imports in the CIT. Specifically, they disputed the “finding that subject imports from Australia would likely compete under similar conditions of competition to those faced by imports from other subject countries,” according to a court document.

The ITC found that BlueScope, Australia’s only producer, has an incentive and a demonstrated interest in competing for sales in the US market.

The CIT said the ITC is allowed to cumulatively assess imports if they are likely to compete with each other and domestically produced product and if they are likely to negatively impact the domestic industry.

But BlueScope argued that its sales to its US affiliate Steelscape shouldn’t be considered sales in the US merchant market. Therefore, they would not be in competition with US-produced product.

However, considering BlueScope’s production capacity, the ITC said its sales wouldn’t be limited to Steelscape alone. Since other US steel producers can compete in the Western US, where Steelscape is located, the ITC determined that BlueScope’s sales would be in direct competition with domestic producers.

CIT decision

Despite BlueScope’s arguments, the CIT upheld the ITC’s decision to cumulate Australia’s HR exports with the other countries, saying it was lawful and supported by evidence.

The CIT concluded that the ITC “reasonably determined that BlueScope would maintain an incentive to export hot-rolled steel to the US market upon revocation of the antidumping duty order.”

As such, Judge Gary S. Katzmann signed the CIT opinion sustaining the ITC’s sunset review determination.

Note that domestic producers Cleveland-Cliffs, Steel Dynamics Inc., SSAB, Nucor, and U.S. Steel participated as defendant-intervenors in the case.

BlueScope could not be reached for comment by the time of this story’s publication.