Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd. v. United States

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
DecidedOctober 8, 2025
Docket24-1268
StatusPublished

This text of Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd. v. United States (Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd. v. United States) 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
Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd. v. United States, (Fed. Cir. 2025).

Opinion

Case: 24-1268 Document: 47 Page: 1 Filed: 10/08/2025

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

GUJARAT FLUOROCHEMICALS LTD., Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

UNITED STATES, Defendant

DAIKIN AMERICA, INC., Defendant-Appellant ______________________

2024-1268 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Court of International Trade in No. 1:22-cv-00120-TCS, Senior Judge Timothy C. Stanceu. ______________________

Decided: October 8, 2025 ______________________

DIANA DIMITRIUC QUAIA, ArentFox Schiff LLP, Wash- ington, DC, argued for plaintiff-appellee. Also represented by JESSICA R. DIPIETRO, JOHN M. GURLEY, MATTHEW MOSHER NOLAN, MARIO TORRICO; YUN GAO, New York, NY.

ELIZABETH DRAKE, Schagrin Associates, Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellant. Also represented by NICHOLAS J. BIRCH, SAAD YOUNUS CHALCHAL, CHRISTOPHER CLOUTIER, WILLIAM ALFRED FENNELL, Case: 24-1268 Document: 47 Page: 2 Filed: 10/08/2025

JEFFREY DAVID GERRISH, LUKE A. MEISNER, ROGER BRIAN SCHAGRIN. ______________________

Before REYNA, BRYSON, and STOLL, Circuit Judges. Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge REYNA. Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge BRYSON. REYNA, Circuit Judge. This is an appeal from a judgment of the United States Court of International Trade. According to the Trade Court, the U.S. Department of Commerce erred in its de- termination that the cross-ownership regulation at 19 C.F.R. § 351.525(b)(6)(iv) applied to Appellee Gujarat Flu- orochemicals Ltd.’s product. We agree that 19 C.F.R. § 351.525(b)(6)(iv) was inapplicable under the circum- stances in this case and therefore affirm. BACKGROUND I. The Tariff Act of 1930 authorizes the U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) to impose a countervailing duty on imported merchandise to redress the effect of a counter- vailable subsidy provided by the government of the export- ing country. See 19 U.S.C. § 1671(a). Pursuant to this statutory authorization, Commerce generally attributes a subsidy to the products produced by the company that re- ceives the subsidy. See 19 C.F.R. § 351.525(b)(6)(i). How- ever, Commerce may attribute a subsidy to a company other than the company producing the subsidized product when “cross-ownership” exists between two companies. Id. Case: 24-1268 Document: 47 Page: 3 Filed: 10/08/2025

GUJARAT FLUOROCHEMICALS LTD. v. US 3

§ 351.525(b)(6)(iv). 1 In other words, Commerce may attrib- ute a subsidy received by Company A to the products of Company B if these two companies are cross-owned and meet other regulatory requirements. See id. The regula- tion provides that [i]f there is cross-ownership between an input supplier and a downstream producer, and pro- duction of the input product is primarily dedi- cated to production of the downstream product, the Secretary [of Commerce] will attribute sub- sidies received by the input producer to the com- bined sales of the input and downstream products produced by both corporations (exclud- ing the sales between the two corporations). Id. 2 When Commerce promulgated 19 C.F.R. § 351.525(b)(6)(iv) in 1998, it published a notice of the final

“Cross-ownership exists between two or more cor- 1

porations when one corporation can use or direct the indi- vidual assets of the other corporation(s) in essentially the same ways it can use its own assets.” 19 C.F.R. § 351.525(b)(6)(vii). For the remainder of this opinion, we cite to the 2

1998 version of this regulation, which Commerce applied in this case. This regulation has since been updated to more explicitly define the circumstances of when an input is “primarily dedicated” to downstream production. See 19 C.F.R. § 351.525(b)(6)(iv)(B) (2025) (listing several factors that Commerce may consider when determining whether an input product is “primarily dedicated to production of the downstream product”). Commerce has not intervened in this appeal to defend its application of 19 C.F.R. § 351.525(b)(6)(iv) in this matter. Case: 24-1268 Document: 47 Page: 4 Filed: 10/08/2025

rule, which the parties refer to as the “CVD Preamble.” In this notice, Commerce explained the purpose of the cross- ownership regulation and provided three examples of when an input was or was not “primarily dedicated” under the regulation. Countervailing Duties, 63 Fed. Reg. 65,348, 65,401 (Int’l Trade Admin. Nov. 25, 1998) (“CVD Pream- ble”). According to the CVD Preamble, subsidies to (1) semo- lina, an input for the downstream product of pasta, and (2) timber, an input for the downstream product of lumber, were appropriately attributable to the downstream prod- ucts under 19 C.F.R. § 351.525(b)(6)(iv). Id. The CVD Pre- amble also noted that subsidies provided for the production of plastic, an input for the downstream products of automo- biles and appliances, were not appropriately attributable to the downstream products under 19 C.F.R. § 351.525(b)(6)(iv). Id. The CVD Preamble also noted that the subsidies provided for the production of plastic would be better captured through the upstream subsidies statu- tory provision, i.e., a subsidy attribution rule concerning subsidies for inputs which can be attributable to the down- stream product irrespective of whether the input producer and the downstream producer are co-owned. Id. 3

3 An “upstream subsidy” is a countervailable subsidy other than an export subsidy that “is paid or bestowed by an authority . . . with respect to a product (. . . an ‘input product’) that is used in the same country as the authority in the manufacture or production of merchandise which is the subject of a countervailing duty proceeding,” that “be- stows a competitive benefit on the merchandise,” and that “has a significant effect on the cost of manufacturing or pro- ducing the merchandise.” 19 U.S.C. § 1677-1(a). Case: 24-1268 Document: 47 Page: 5 Filed: 10/08/2025

GUJARAT FLUOROCHEMICALS LTD. v. US 5

II. Commerce’s CVD Order Appellant Daikin America, Inc. (“Daikin”) is a U.S. do- mestic producer of polytetrafluoroethylene (“PTFE”) resin. On January 27, 2021, Daikin filed antidumping and coun- tervailing duty petitions on imports of granular PTFE resin from India and Russia. Commerce initiated a coun- tervailing duty investigation during April 1, 2019, through March 31, 2020, also referred to as the period of investiga- tion (“POI”). Commerce selected appellee Gujarat Fluoro- chemicals Ltd. (“Gujarat”), an Indian resin manufacturer, as the sole mandatory respondent in the investigation. In March 2022, Commerce issued a countervailing duty order on imports of PTFE resin from India and Russia, as- sessing against Gujarat a 31.89% countervailing duty rate (“CVD rate”).

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