Analysis
April 9, 2026
Court backs Commerce in Nippon’s hot-rolled steel review dispute
Written by Laura Miller
The US Court of International Trade (CIT) has upheld the Commerce Department’s decision to apply adverse facts available to Nippon Steel in the 2018-2019 administrative review of hot-rolled steel from Japan.
In the final results of the AD administrative review of 2018-2019, Commerce assigned the Nippon group of companies a weighted-average dumping margin of 11.70%, partially using adverse facts available.
An April 8 CIT ruling affirms Commerce’s finding that Nippon Steel failed to act “to the best of its ability” when it could not obtain downstream sales data from a home-market affiliate.
Nippon argued that Japanese antitrust law prevented it from pressuring the affiliate to provide the data. But the Court agreed with Commerce that the Japanese Antimonopoly Act does not prohibit normal business practices related to complying with a US anti-dumping investigation. The Court noted the law’s guidelines address “unjust” uses of bargaining power, not the routine collection of information for trade proceedings.
The Court order stated Nippon Steel had known for years that this affiliate was non-cooperative in prior reviews and could have taken stronger steps – including contractual requirements or alternative business arrangements – to ensure compliance. Because Nippon Steel did not demonstrate “maximum effort,” the Court sustained Commerce’s continued use of partial adverse facts available.
In the most recent administrative review of the hot rolled duties, for the one-year period ending Sept. 30, 2023, Nippon received a dumping margin of 29.70%.
