Creswell Trading Co. v. Allegheny Foundry Co.

141 F.3d 1471, 1998 WL 175862
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
DecidedApril 16, 1998
DocketNos. 97-1486, 97-1487
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 141 F.3d 1471 (Creswell Trading Co. v. Allegheny Foundry Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Creswell Trading Co. v. Allegheny Foundry Co., 141 F.3d 1471, 1998 WL 175862 (Fed. Cir. 1998).

Opinion

LOURIE, Circuit Judge.

Allegheny Foundry, Co. et al. (the “Domestic Industry”) and the United States appeal from the decision of the Court of International Trade in favor of Creswell Trading Co. et al. (the “Importers”) affirming Commerce’s determination that certain oceanic shipping costs and inland shipping costs did not constitute countervailable subsidies under “Item (d)” of the Illustrative List of Export Subsidies, annexed to the Agreement on Interpretation and Application of Articles VI, XVI, and XXIII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (“GATT Agreement”).1 Creswell Trading Co. v. United States, 964 F.Supp. 409 (Ct. Int’l Trade 1997). Because the court erred in its decision concerning the oceanic shipping costs but not as to the inland shipping costs, we affirm-in-part and reverse-in-part.

BACKGROUND

In 1985, India’s eastings manufacturers needed pig iron to manufacture items for export. Because India’s domestic pig iron manufacturers were selling pig iron at higher prices than manufacturers on the world market, the Indian government provided rebates to its castings manufacturers pursuant to its International Price Reimbursement Scheme (the IPRS program). These rebates were intended to enable Indian castings manufacturers to buy the more expensive domestically produced pig iron while still competing effectively in the world market. See generally Creswell Trading Co. v. United States, 15 F.3d 1054 (Fed.Cir.1994) (“Creswell I ”) (discussing the IPRS program in further detail).

The Indian government calculated the IPRS rebates as being equal to the domestic price of pig iron minus the world market price of pig iron. The Indian government’s world market price did not include the cost of shipping pig iron procured on world markets to the port at Calcutta, India, nor did it include the inland shipping cost necessary to bring the pig iron from Calcutta to the plants of the Indian castings manufacturers. The world market price did however include the cost of shipping the pig iron by rail from the pig iron exporter’s plant to its local port. Thus, the world market price used by the Indian government in the computation of rebates was a Free-On-Board (FOB) price, the price one would pay for the pig iron at the exporter’s local port. The Indian government’s domestic price included the cost of shipping pig iron from the plants of domestic pig iron manufacturers to Calcutta, but did not include the cost of delivery from Calcutta to the plants of the eastings manufacturers. [1474]*1474Thus, the domestic price used by the Indian government was FOB at Calcutta.

When the Importers in 1985 introduced castings manufactured under the IPRS program into the U.S. market, the Domestic Industry asserted that the rebates constituted countervailable subsidies. Specifically, they contended that the rebates were countervailable subsidies under Item (d), which defines a subsidy as follows:

(d) The delivery by governments or their agencies of imported or domestic products or services for use in the production of exported goods, on terms or conditions more favourable than for delivery of like or directly competitive products or services for use in the production of goods for domestic consumption, if (in the case of products) such terms or conditions are more favourable than those commercially available on world markets to their exporters.

(emphasis added). The Domestic Industry reasoned that under Item (d), the rebates constituted countervailable subsidies if the Indian government provided pig iron to its castings manufacturers on terms more favorable than those “commercially available on the world markets.” They argued that the Indian Government’s world market price was artificially low because it did not include the cost of shipping the pig iron to Calcutta. In short, they contended that a given rebate was excessive by the amount of the oceanic shipping costs, that the excessive amount allowed Indian castings manufacturers to procure pig iron on terms more favorable than those “commercially available on world markets,” and therefore that this excessive amount was a countervailable subsidy under Item (d).

Commerce initially agreed that the Indian government should have included oceanic shipping costs in its world market price and therefore that these costs constituted countervailable subsidies under Item (d): “Indian exporters who purchase pig iron on the world market would necessarily also incur the cost of delivering the pig iron to India. Therefore the commercially available alternative [to the IPRS program] is the price of the pig iron itself, from sources outside of India, plus delivery charges to India.” Final Results of Redetermination Pursuant to Court Remand, Creswell Trading Co. v. United States, at 4 (Dept, of Commerce Feb. 13, 1995) (“Creswell II”). Commerce rejected the Domestic Industry’s alternative argument that the entire rebate was a countervailable subsidy.

The Court of International Trade disagreed with Commerce’s oceanic shipping cost determination, and remanded, stating:

In comparing the Indian “pig iron package” with a foreign FOB “pig iron package,” it becomes clear that the terms or conditions at which the Indian government delivered pig iron to its exporters were not more favorable by the value of ocean freight, because ocean freight was not a term or condition offered by the Indian government in its “pig iron package.” Since the Indian government was offering pig iron being produced in India, there would be no need to include an ocean freight term or condition for delivery to Indian exporters. Therefore, ocean freight would be a term or condition irrelevant to the FOB price-based Item (d) comparison at hand.

Creswell Trading Co. v. United States, 936 F.Supp. 1072, 1079 (Ct. Int’l Trade 1996) (“Creswell III ”) (emphasis in original). The court also instructed Commerce to assess whether the inclusion of inland shipping costs in the domestic price constituted a countervailable subsidy. Id. at 1080.

On remand, Commerce reluctantly deducted oceanic shipping costs from the world market price and recalculated the countervailable portion of the IPRS rebates. See Final Results of Redetermination on Remand Pursuant to Creswell Trading Co. v. United States, at 4, 5 (Dept, of Commerce Sept. 30, 1996) (“Creswell IV”) (“Although we have followed the instructions of the court, we respectfully disagree with the court’s interpretation of Item (d).... Pig iron that is sitting in a Brazilian port is not ‘commercially available’ to an Indian [castings] exporter.”). Commerce also determined that no adjustment in its countervailability assessment should be made for inland freight. After noting that the Indian govern-[1475]*1475merit’s domestic price included delivery to Calcutta, id. at 5, Commerce reasoned that:

[t]he world market price for pig iron used in our remand, after deducting ocean freight, becomes an FOB price. Therefore, this world market price would include inland freight within the country of exportation (i.e.,

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141 F.3d 1471, 1998 WL 175862, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/creswell-trading-co-v-allegheny-foundry-co-cafc-1998.