[00:00:00] Speaker 02:
We are challenging the 11th Administrative Review of Activated Carbon from China Anti-Dumping Duty Order

[00:00:22] Speaker 04:
This appeal involves commerce making a premeditated selection of Malaysia as its primary surrogate country, and then thwarting selection of the superior choice, which was Romania.

[00:00:34] Speaker 04:
Besides surrogate country selection, we are also challenging surrogate values for Koltar, Pitch, and Bituminous.

[00:00:41] Speaker 03:
Could you speak up just a little bit for me?

[00:00:44] Speaker 03:
Just speak a little louder.

[00:00:46] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:00:46] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:00:47] Speaker 04:
I will start with the S fees or surrogate value as commerce should have done per its policy under which a comparative analysis of surrogate values across potential surrogate countries is a necessary precondition before a primary surrogate country is selected and not the other way around.

[00:01:06] Speaker 04:
Let me start with coal tar pitch.

[00:01:08] Speaker 04:
What is coal tar pitch?

[00:01:09] Speaker 04:
Coal tar is a byproduct during production of coke.

[00:01:14] Speaker 04:
Coltar is then further distilled.

[00:01:17] Speaker 04:
And during distillation, it already contains 60% pitch and 40% of the products.

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During distillation, other products keep on falling, and pitch content keeps on rising.

[00:01:30] Speaker 04:
At the end of this process, you get pure pitch, which is 100% pitch.

[00:01:35] Speaker 04:
So Coltar and pitch, these form the two bookends of this pitch spectrum or distillation spectrum.

[00:01:44] Speaker 04:
Our input is cold tar pitch, which falls somewhere here in this spectrum.

[00:01:51] Speaker 04:
It is above 60%, but less than 100%.

[00:01:53] Speaker 04:
Let's see the HTS options.

[00:01:56] Speaker 04:
2706 covers both cold tar and cold tar pitch, and partially distilled tar.

[00:02:05] Speaker 04:
So 2706 straddles through the entire spectrum and ends just before the final point where you have the pure pitches covered under 270810.

[00:02:16] Speaker 04:
But what commerce did, it focused on a truncated description of 2706.

[00:02:21] Speaker 04:
It entirely eviscerated partially distal tar and considered only coal tar to belong to 2706.

[00:02:30] Speaker 04:
And then it said that cold tar pitch in common parlance is also known as pitch, and therefore cold tar pitch is pitch.

[00:02:38] Speaker 04:
And CIT also said that it brought distillation as a straw man and said, both cold tar pitch and pitch, both are being produced by the same distillation process.

[00:02:47] Speaker 04:
So they are one and the same.

[00:02:49] Speaker 04:
This is totally wrong.

[00:02:50] Speaker 04:
This approach is totally wrong.

[00:02:51] Speaker 04:
But why it is wrong?

[00:02:53] Speaker 04:
It ignores the essential character of the input, which is partially distilled tar, not pitch.

[00:03:01] Speaker 04:
It misapplies the truncated description of 2706, as I said, because it illustrates partially distilled tar from the equation.

[00:03:09] Speaker 04:
It improperly relies on common parlance nomenclature of the input, which is incorrectly often called pitch, whereas it is a partially distilled cold tar.

[00:03:19] Speaker 04:
And finally, it contradicts commerce's own prior precedent from POR 10, immediately prior review, where it classified the identical input under 2706.

[00:03:31] Speaker 04:
Now, so we are properly, the heading is 2706.

[00:03:35] Speaker 04:
Now, when we are in Malaysia, the 2706 surrogate value is anomalous, unreliable.

[00:03:41] Speaker 04:
Because why it is anomalous?

[00:03:43] Speaker 04:
And that is why commerce itself jettisoned between preliminary and final.

[00:03:46] Speaker 04:
Because the cold tar price, which is the raw material price, it is inverted.

[00:03:51] Speaker 04:
It is higher than the price of the finished goods pitch.

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And this inversion or anomalies brought to start

[00:04:01] Speaker 04:
It is clear, because both imports under both headings are coming from the common sources.

[00:04:09] Speaker 04:
So you cannot make the argument, no, it were coming from different sources.

[00:04:12] Speaker 04:
So it could have been, you know, inversion could have been on account of that factor.

[00:04:18] Speaker 04:
So that is so far as court are next.

[00:04:21] Speaker 02:
Before you move on, there's a lot of arguments here.

[00:04:25] Speaker 02:
It's hard for me to keep track.

[00:04:26] Speaker 02:
But I think a lot, if not all, of what you've said, the government is saying you did not exhaust below.

[00:04:32] Speaker 02:
And you forfeited at least some of that.

[00:04:35] Speaker 02:
Do you agree with that?

[00:04:37] Speaker 04:
No.

[00:04:37] Speaker 04:
No, we do not agree.

[00:04:38] Speaker 04:
And the court brought in Boomerang in this equation.

[00:04:44] Speaker 04:
Boom.

[00:04:45] Speaker 04:
Our situation is not covered by Boomerang.

[00:04:48] Speaker 04:
Why?

[00:04:49] Speaker 04:
It is covered by ABB, another decision of this court in 2019, to which Judge Stoll offered that decision.

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Boomerang here does not apply, because commerce de facto did not use 270810 in the prisons.

[00:05:05] Speaker 04:
And second, it gave a very confusing preliminary results, where it said that it was going to value Coulter under 2706, Coulter pitch under 270810, but ended up valuing Coulter pitch under 270600.

[00:05:19] Speaker 02:
And none of the parties- Did you argue below that 270810 would be unreliable and anomalous because of the prevalence of Spanish imports?

[00:05:27] Speaker 02:
Yes, yes.

[00:05:28] Speaker 02:
That argument- Can you tell me where you argued that?

[00:05:31] Speaker 04:
That argument was not made before the court, because that

[00:05:34] Speaker 04:
It was or was not.

[00:05:37] Speaker 04:
It was not.

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And we were not required to exhaust it because that heading was not used in the pillars.

[00:05:42] Speaker 04:
And it was laid out in a very confusing manner, which is the fact situation which was what happened in ADB also.

[00:05:50] Speaker 04:
There also the department changed its practice.

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between prelims and finals just as department changed its practice here between prelims and finals from 2706 which was consistently being used historically to a new heading in the final 270810.

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And the department gave a very confusing finding.

[00:06:06] Speaker 04:
It did not put us on notice and none of the parties briefed this issue.

[00:06:10] Speaker 04:
None of the petitioners did not say you valued under 270810.

[00:06:14] Speaker 04:
So this came up for the first time in the final results and therefore we were never required to exhaust under ABV.

[00:06:24] Speaker 04:
I will now go to bituminous coal.

[00:06:27] Speaker 04:
Again, the department improperly valued both categories of bituminous coal.

[00:06:31] Speaker 04:
For unknown heat value coal, it speculated and misclassified under Romanian 270112.

[00:06:39] Speaker 04:
270112 covers predominant coal, but only with heat value equal to or exceeding 5833 kilocalorie per kg.

[00:06:47] Speaker 04:
Now, if it is an unknown heat value coal, equal probability principle says that it could be either above 5833 or below 5833.

[00:06:55] Speaker 04:
But the department made a presumption based on common partner's same mistake.

[00:07:00] Speaker 04:
that because the name matches, it eviscerated once again node 2 out of the equation, looked only narrowly at the description against 2, 7, 0, 1, 1, 2, and said, your input in common parlance is called bituminous code.

[00:07:11] Speaker 04:
This heading narrowly looked at is also bituminous code, so it tried to fit it right there.

[00:07:17] Speaker 03:
This was totally wrong.

[00:07:18] Speaker 03:
I want to ask you a question just to make sure I'm clear.

[00:07:20] Speaker 03:
For the last issue discussed, which was the chart page and whether it was under the right classification, that's reviewed for substantial evidence, right?

[00:07:30] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:07:30] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:07:31] Speaker 03:
And the issue you're discussing now, that's also reviewed for substantial evidence, right?

[00:07:36] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:07:36] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:07:36] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:07:36] Speaker 03:
And it's your view, of course, that there isn't substantial evidence for Congress's determination.

[00:07:41] Speaker 04:
No.

[00:07:41] Speaker 04:
Because commerce unlawfully make ultimately on both the issues, cold tarpage and bituminous coal.

[00:07:47] Speaker 04:
There are some common things here.

[00:07:49] Speaker 04:
You're focusing improperly on common patterns.

[00:07:51] Speaker 04:
I didn't say this.

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The CIT had expressly warned in AR 10, don't be misled by common patterns name of the input.

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and then you are ignoring the essential character of the input.

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And on the HTS side, you are making two mistakes.

[00:08:05] Speaker 04:
You are looking at a truncated description of 2706 in one instance and 270112 in case of bituminous code.

[00:08:13] Speaker 04:
And then you are missing one important thing.

[00:08:15] Speaker 04:
This is a case of duality.

[00:08:17] Speaker 04:
If you have to properly value cold tarpage, you have to look simultaneously at 2706 and 270810.

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Likewise, for bituminous code, you have to simultaneously view 270112 and 270119.

[00:08:30] Speaker 04:
If you start viewing them in isolation, you are going to make the mistake.

[00:08:33] Speaker 04:
So common mistakes have been made in both the cases.

[00:08:39] Speaker 04:
it together at the description of on for coltar pitch at 2706 and 270810 they would have realized that 270810 covers only pitch from coltar and other sources and partially distilled coltar cannot be simultaneously classified under both these headings and partially distilled coltar expressly mentioned

[00:08:58] Speaker 04:
is a term under 2706.

[00:09:00] Speaker 04:
So you could not have gone wrong.

[00:09:02] Speaker 04:
They would have reached the right decision.

[00:09:05] Speaker 04:
On bituminous coal side also, bituminous coal under 270112 is qualified by heat value.

[00:09:13] Speaker 04:
So it is bisected.

[00:09:15] Speaker 04:
The lower heat value

[00:09:16] Speaker 04:
bituminous coal falls automatically into 270119.

[00:09:19] Speaker 04:
So when it is an unknown heat value coal, you do not know the heat value.

[00:09:23] Speaker 04:
That does not mean it does not have heat value.

[00:09:25] Speaker 04:
You only do not know.

[00:09:26] Speaker 04:
It could be either above or below.

[00:09:27] Speaker 04:
So your higher heat value, you fit under 270112.

[00:09:31] Speaker 04:
Lower heat value, you fit under 270119.

[00:09:33] Speaker 04:
And then you average the two.

[00:09:34] Speaker 04:
That is how you get the proper valuation for unknown heat value coal.

[00:09:38] Speaker 02:
Why isn't that just a factual argument that commerce worked through and the way they resolved it is supported by substantial evidence?

[00:09:47] Speaker 04:
Yes, it is a question of substantial evidence because commerce removed note 2 which is integrally appended to 270112 out of this equation.

[00:09:57] Speaker 04:
Commerce did not look at it.

[00:09:58] Speaker 04:
Commerce said that no.

[00:09:59] Speaker 04:
270112 description is bituminous coal.

[00:10:02] Speaker 04:
Your input is known as bituminous coal.

[00:10:04] Speaker 04:
And we do not know heat value, as if heat value does not exist.

[00:10:07] Speaker 04:
And they try to fit it right there, 270112.

[00:10:11] Speaker 04:
So you're one of the cases which I thought I would be asked, so I will be able to distinguish.

[00:10:16] Speaker 04:
But I will go ahead right now.

[00:10:17] Speaker 04:
That case is mid-continent.

[00:10:20] Speaker 04:
There's a very important distinction with that case.

[00:10:23] Speaker 04:
But I will proceed ahead for now.

[00:10:25] Speaker 04:
For lower heat value coal, commerce went in the wrong direction.

[00:10:30] Speaker 04:
It picked the right heading 270119, but then it selected the wrong country, Malaysia, as if Malaysia was already the primary settlement country.

[00:10:40] Speaker 04:
It was not.

[00:10:41] Speaker 04:
You have to first evaluate the surrogate values of key inputs and then you have to pick up the surrogate country.

[00:10:47] Speaker 04:
By selecting Malaysia, commerce ended up valuing two grades of the same input in two different countries.

[00:10:53] Speaker 04:
It brought a distortion.

[00:10:54] Speaker 04:
You cannot value, I do not know of another case where commerce has valued two grades of the same input in two different countries.

[00:11:01] Speaker 04:
When it had the HTS

[00:11:03] Speaker 04:
for both grades in Romania, so it should have stayed in Romania.

[00:11:07] Speaker 04:
But the fundamental mistake for why all this is happening, because commerce fixated itself, commerce changed itself in Malaysia to begin with.

[00:11:15] Speaker 04:
It started to thwart Romania first on significant production aspect before, during the final results itself, and even when it was remanded, consistently on one pretext or the other, commerce tried to stay locked in Malaysia, and from that,

[00:11:32] Speaker 04:
From that standpoint, it was viewing all the surrogate value choices.

[00:11:36] Speaker 04:
Unless you give me a reason to move out of Malaysia, I'm not going out of Malaysia.

[00:11:40] Speaker 04:
That was a fundamental mistake.

[00:11:41] Speaker 04:
So it was doing the sequential analysis in a backward way, which was against commerce's own policy, where you have to first evaluate data quality and then pick up the primary surrogate country.

[00:11:56] Speaker 04:
Now, in this case, I'm finally taking a primary surrogate country selection.

[00:12:01] Speaker 04:
It is evaluated based on the surrogate value of key input and financial ratios.

[00:12:07] Speaker 04:
Commerce has acknowledged that it can value bituminous coal.

[00:12:10] Speaker 04:
It needs Romanian data for financial ratios.

[00:12:13] Speaker 04:
They have to use Rome carbon from Malaysia.

[00:12:16] Speaker 04:
So for these two inputs, which account... You're into your double time.

[00:12:20] Speaker 02:
Would you like to save it?

[00:12:22] Speaker 04:
I will proceed very fast.

[00:12:26] Speaker 04:
So it is clear that based on these two inputs, they had to stay in Romania.

[00:12:33] Speaker 04:
They did not do so, so they violated their own policy.

[00:12:36] Speaker 04:
I am going to reserve the rest of my time for regrettable.

[00:12:39] Speaker 01:
Good morning, Your Honors, and may it please the Court.

[00:12:42] Speaker 01:
When commerce set about to construct the normal value of the merchandise that was under review here, it first selected a surrogate country, which was Malaysia.

[00:12:49] Speaker 01:
And there's substantial evidence that supports that decision.

[00:12:53] Speaker 01:
Most of Appellant's arguments here reflect a simple disagreement with that exercise of discretion.

[00:13:01] Speaker 01:
Disagreeing that Malaysia was the correct country to choose and that instead Romania

[00:13:07] Speaker 01:
In some cases, Russia would have been the better choice.

[00:13:11] Speaker 01:
But I don't hear any arguments that commerce's decision was not supported by substantial evidence.

[00:13:16] Speaker 01:
And in the absence of that, Pelham's arguments here don't undermine the substantial evidence standard and do not disturb commerce's findings.

[00:13:24] Speaker 01:
The finding of Malaysia was based on product specificity and contemporaneous data with the period of review.

[00:13:33] Speaker 01:
And once chosen, then commerce looked to Malaysian data sets in order to construct the surrogate values to value the inputs that would go into the factors of production for valuing the subject merchandise.

[00:13:46] Speaker 01:
And here, there are two factors of production, I'm sorry, there are two inputs that appellant challenges.

[00:13:53] Speaker 01:
But all of these challenges, again, come down to disagreements with commerce's exercise of discretion in how it chooses to value.

[00:14:00] Speaker 01:
these inputs.

[00:14:01] Speaker 01:
Commerce's strong preference, which is exercised here, was to stick with the primary surrogate country, Malaysia, when they're looking at data sets, and only depart from that and look to their secondary surrogate country, which was Romania in this case, when data was not available or couldn't be relied on from Malaysia.

[00:14:20] Speaker 01:
A number of arguments have been raised about the reliability of Malaysian data in certain data sets with respect to Patumnes-Coles as well as

[00:14:28] Speaker 01:
to the extent those arguments have not been exhausted.

[00:14:32] Speaker 01:
They shouldn't be raised here, but I'll just address them in their substance.

[00:14:35] Speaker 01:
There is nothing on this record that appellants have pointed to to say that the Malaysian data, which has been found to be reliable, is not reliable or it's aberrational.

[00:14:48] Speaker 01:
When commerce engages in that sort of an inquiry, there's a benchmarking analysis that it undertakes.

[00:14:53] Speaker 01:
It looks at, it compares historical import data for a potential surrogate country, or it looks at data from the same classification over years.

[00:15:03] Speaker 01:
There's no such evidence on this record that would allow commerce to make that determination with respect to the specific datasets that appellants are challenging here.

[00:15:17] Speaker 01:
with respect specifically to the bituminous coal input.

[00:15:24] Speaker 01:
Appellants raised a number of arguments about how the heat values could have been constructed or how they should have been measured.

[00:15:32] Speaker 01:
But it's undisputed that there were inputs that had known heat values and then there were inputs that had unknown heat values.

[00:15:39] Speaker 01:
For the unknown heat values, commerce was left to evaluate that.

[00:15:44] Speaker 01:
input using its best available data and relied on the respondent's own representations about what those inputs were.

[00:15:54] Speaker 02:
I might have misunderstood you.

[00:15:55] Speaker 02:
I think you meant there were some inputs with known heat value and some with unknown heat value.

[00:16:00] Speaker 02:
That's correct.

[00:16:01] Speaker 01:
And for the unknown, the appellant's challenge, the classification for both, but specifically with respect to the unknown heat value, the arguments that appellants are raising now are simply

[00:16:12] Speaker 01:
attorney arguments about how one can look to heat value and the content of those inputs.

[00:16:18] Speaker 01:
None of that's on the record.

[00:16:20] Speaker 01:
None of that was before commerce because they could not identify what these heat values were.

[00:16:25] Speaker 01:
And the respondents who would have been responsible for creating this record and telling commerce what those heat values were did not provide test reports that allowed commerce to make that determination.

[00:16:35] Speaker 01:
So instead, Commerce relied on those respondents' own description of the input, which they described as, in numerous places, bituminous coal.

[00:16:45] Speaker 01:
And bituminous coal matches the description under heading 270112 for that particular input.

[00:16:53] Speaker 01:
Commerce is entitled to rely on the plain language of descriptions provided by respondents, as well as classifications and where those appear.

[00:17:05] Speaker 01:
And I would just like to briefly address, as I suspect my friend on the other side will in his rebuttal, the argument that there may not have been an opportunity or commerce did not provide a notice and an opportunity to cure any deficiencies that were later identified by the respondents in this petition.

[00:17:26] Speaker 01:
And they seek to apply the standard under section 1677M.

[00:17:31] Speaker 01:
That section applies only to instances where commerce issues Request for information to respondents respondents

[00:17:41] Speaker 01:
replies, submits information, and there is a deficiency with the information that is provided.

[00:17:46] Speaker 01:
In those circumstances, Congress is under its duty to notify the respondent and provide an opportunity to cure.

[00:17:51] Speaker 01:
That section has no applicability here when we're talking about surrogate values and the construction of surrogate values.

[00:17:57] Speaker 01:
This Court has decided in 2014 in Marvin Furniture that 1677M only applies when there's an actual request for information and a response.

[00:18:08] Speaker 01:
Serial value constructions are done on a voluntary basis by a number of parties who, on their own initiative, take it upon themselves to submit such information.

[00:18:18] Speaker 01:
So commerce is under no duty to notify or allow deficient information to be cured.

[00:18:24] Speaker 01:
uh... nor is there any reason for commerce to believe that the information that's provided was in fact efficient.

[00:18:29] Speaker 02:
This is I think the eleventh administrative review and some of the decisions commerce made here seem to be different from what they've done in earlier administrative reviews.

[00:18:39] Speaker 02:
Is there any obligation on commerce as part to explain why it's viewing some of the very same issues differently once we get to the eleventh review?

[00:18:49] Speaker 01:
Commerce has reached different conclusions in this review as it has

[00:18:54] Speaker 01:
in prior reviews on certain issues, but the duty to explain differences only arises if commerce is looking at the same record, the same facts before it.

[00:19:06] Speaker 01:
applying a different methodology and reaching a different conclusion.

[00:19:10] Speaker 01:
But there hasn't been any argument here that the evidence on this record was in fact the same as the evidence before Commerce in AR 10 or 2 or 4.

[00:19:21] Speaker 01:
And in fact, as we look back across the

[00:19:24] Speaker 01:
among the different reviews that are undertaken, Commerce has reached conclusions that are similar to what it reached in 2011 and also different.

[00:19:32] Speaker 01:
So it goes both ways.

[00:19:35] Speaker 01:
And the reason is because the respondents who are obligated to respond to Commerce's questionnaires and they're also obligated to create the record have put different evidence on the record supporting the inputs that they produce and the surrogate values that they would like to see used.

[00:19:51] Speaker 01:
And that is what commerce relies on in reaching its conclusions.

[00:19:55] Speaker 01:
So in the coal tar pitch,

[00:19:57] Speaker 01:
issue for example when a mandatory respondent says we use coal tar pitch this is what it is this is how it's produced commerce relies on that in determining how that value is going to be calculated or assigned under the different classification headings in another review a different respondent or even maybe the same respondent could put different evidence on the record describing what that input is and so a different

[00:20:22] Speaker 01:
determination could be reached.

[00:20:23] Speaker 01:
There wasn't anything in the briefing here, there wasn't any argument made that the same evidence was presented in prior reviews and commerce changed its methodology or reached a different conclusion on the basis of the same facts.

[00:20:38] Speaker 01:
That is just not the case that we have here, so we will get this anew.

[00:20:43] Speaker 01:
And so if there are no further questions from the panel, I would see the remainder of my time, if I might, to interveners.

[00:20:49] Speaker 01:
I respectfully request that this court uphold the decision of the Court of International Trade and sustain Commerce's final results.

[00:20:55] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:20:56] Speaker 02:
Ms.

[00:20:56] Speaker 02:
Brewer, it looks like you have about six minutes.

[00:21:00] Speaker 02:
I think we understand what the government's saying.

[00:21:01] Speaker 02:
So if you could avoid repeating what they just said, that would be helpful.

[00:21:06] Speaker 02:
If you have anything additional to add, feel free.

[00:21:09] Speaker 00:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:21:10] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:21:10] Speaker 00:
May it please the Court.

[00:21:11] Speaker 00:
I won't repeat arguments.

[00:21:13] Speaker 00:
I wanted to just chime in on Pellant's argument that 1677MD applies as a legal matter here.

[00:21:19] Speaker 00:
We made the point in our response brief that there was no support provided in Pellant's opening brief to support that argument.

[00:21:27] Speaker 00:
And in response in their reply brief, they've cited two a couple of items that I'd like to quickly address.

[00:21:32] Speaker 00:
This is on page 23 of their reply brief.

[00:21:34] Speaker 00:
They first cite to the Hitachi Energy case that was issued by this court last year.

[00:21:39] Speaker 00:
That case involved a Korean respondent reporting pertaining to its U.S.

[00:21:44] Speaker 00:
sales and certain revenues that were associated with its U.S.

[00:21:48] Speaker 00:
sales.

[00:21:48] Speaker 00:
So that was a response to information provided in a questionnaire response, not in the surrogate value context, quite different than what we're looking at here.

[00:21:57] Speaker 00:
In the Shelter Forest case, which is a non-precedential decision from this court, it pertained to the question of whether 1677MD applies in the context of responses provided by a voluntary respondent, not a mandatory respondent.

[00:22:12] Speaker 00:
Again, not a case that occurred in the context of surrogate values.

[00:22:15] Speaker 00:
So neither of those cases applies here.

[00:22:18] Speaker 00:
And then finally, at the top of page 23 of their brief, appellant cite to a seamless refined copper-typing tube case from the Commerce Department to argue that Commerce routinely issues supplemental surrogate value questionnaires in its proceedings.

[00:22:35] Speaker 00:
But if you look at what plaintiffs are citing there, it's actually supplemental questionnaires about the respondent's factors of production and not the surrogate value information that they, excuse me, submitted.

[00:22:47] Speaker 00:
So again, distinguishable case.

[00:22:50] Speaker 00:
So it's our position that at this point that argument from the appellant remains unsupported without any legal authority.

[00:22:57] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:22:59] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:23:05] Speaker 04:
I will start with the request for information.

[00:23:08] Speaker 04:
This is a chevron issue.

[00:23:10] Speaker 04:
1677 ND speaks about request for information.

[00:23:13] Speaker 04:
There are five enumerated categories of factual information in regulations.

[00:23:18] Speaker 04:
One of them is about surrogate values.

[00:23:21] Speaker 04:
The fact, my friend was mentioning that in copper pipe case, actually I worked on that case, the department issued four supplementals, specifically on surrogate value, not on FOBs, as she just said.

[00:23:36] Speaker 04:
Now it has become

[00:23:37] Speaker 04:
very common for the department to keep issuing surrogate value specific supplementals in every case I am working on these days.

[00:23:46] Speaker 04:
So the department, it is a request for information.

[00:23:49] Speaker 04:
It is not like Marvin's case where it was a new shipper review application made on a voluntary basis.

[00:23:54] Speaker 04:
No.

[00:23:55] Speaker 04:
These information are being solicited specifically at 294, 295 in the appendix.

[00:24:02] Speaker 04:
the letter from commerce at 294 295 appendix it specifically calls for in response to that letter we provided that information and therefore to say that commerce was not obligated to issue deficiency let us see if it if it felt that our

[00:24:19] Speaker 04:
data was not contemporaneous has no merit.

[00:24:24] Speaker 04:
Moreover, this argument is completely disingenuous because commerce actually used our Romanian data in preliminary results and credited also in a footnote.

[00:24:34] Speaker 04:
that we are using the data submitted by the respondents.

[00:24:38] Speaker 04:
For the first time, they had a revelation during final demand that this whole Romanian data is from three years.

[00:24:45] Speaker 04:
And they came up with some goofy explanation, which has absolutely no merit.

[00:24:48] Speaker 04:
I don't have time.

[00:24:49] Speaker 04:
Otherwise, I would have explained it.

[00:24:51] Speaker 04:
Basically, this total Romanian data is fully contemporaneous.

[00:24:54] Speaker 04:
Everyone knows about it.

[00:24:56] Speaker 04:
So they're just trying to oust Romania with one broad brush, some sweeping

[00:25:02] Speaker 04:
explanation, for example, the specificity that Malaysia alone has coconut shell charcoal data.

[00:25:08] Speaker 04:
This honorable court in Jacobi Carbon's AR4 case determined that 4402 heading is the proper heading for value in coal-based carbonized material, which is the main input.

[00:25:20] Speaker 04:
And only Romania has that data on this record.

[00:25:23] Speaker 04:
So if you consider

[00:25:25] Speaker 04:
Financial ratios between coal and coal-based carbonized material, these three inputs in the aggregate account for more than 50% normal value for both the respondents and for which the quality data, reliable data, or actually the data, usable data itself is only in Romania, not in Malaysia.

[00:25:43] Speaker 04:
So there is no question that Malaysia is an improper choice, commerce made.

[00:25:47] Speaker 04:
And just at every possible step it came up with.

[00:25:51] Speaker 02:
Amy, we're out of time.

[00:25:52] Speaker 02:
We have your argument.

[00:25:54] Speaker 04:
Thank you.