In December 2014, Commerce released its new list of surrogate countries for China. Neither Indonesia nor the Philippines are on the new list, meaning that Commerce and parties in China NME cases will face increasing difficulties in finding usable surrogate countries on the official list, outside of Thailand. Perhaps reflecting these new difficulties, Commerce has begun to allow more countries not on the list to serve as surrogate countries.

2014 was another eventful year at the ITC for antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) cases with some 8 petitions filed, 14 investigations completed, and 23 sunset votes on 40 orders. The 8 AD/CVD petitions filed in 2014 were down from the 14 filed last year, but still above the 5 cases filed in 2012.

2013 was a big year for new AD/CVD cases.

A section 701 (countervailing duty) & 731 (antidumping duty) petition was filed on the last day of 2013 (12/31/2013) on Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Products from People’s Republic of China (AD & CVD) and Taiwan (AD) by Wiley Rein LLP on behalf of SolarWorld Industries America Inc.

The former “Nails Test” method for identifying whether a company engaged in targeted dumping was wholly replaced by a two-staged test known as the Differential Pricing Analysis. Beginning in March, 2013 with the Xanthan Gum cases from China and Austria, the Department has applied this new methodology over 50 times with interesting results.