NTN BEARING CORP. OF AMERICA, ET AL. V. THE UNITED STATES

Slip Op. 99-71 (July 29, 1999)

FINAL RESULTS OF REDETERMINATION PURSUANT TO COURT REMAND

SUMMARY

The Department of Commerce has prepared the final results of redetermination pursuant to the remand order from the U.S. Court of International Trade in NTN Bearing Corp. Of America, et al. v. The United States, Consolidated Court No. 97-01-00092, Slip Op. 99-71 (July 29, 1999), as modified by the Court's order in Slip Op. 99-113 (October 22, 1999). In accordance with the Court's instructions, we have removed zero-price sample sales from our margin calculations. This change has resulted in weighted-average margins of 14.33 percent for ball bearings, 11.05 percent for cylindrical roller bearings, and 32.33 percent for spherical plain bearings manufactured by NTN Bearing Corp. Of America, et al.

On November 15, 1999, the Department issued the draft results of redetermination to NTN Bearing Corp. Of America, et al., and to The Torrington Company for comment. We received no comments and have made no changes to our draft results calculations for these final results of redetermination.

BACKGROUND

On July 29, 1999, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) issued an order in NTN Bearing Corp. Of America, et al. v. The United States, Consolidated Court No. 97-01-00092, Slip Op. 99-71 (July 29, 1999) (NTN), remanding to the Department of Commerce (the Department) Antifriction Bearings (Other Than Tapered Roller Bearings) and Parts Thereof From France, et al,; Final Results of Antidumping Duty Administrative Reviews, Partial Termination of Administrative Reviews, and Revocation in Part of Antidumping Duty Orders, 61 FR 66472 (December 17, 1996) (AFBs V). In NTN, the CIT remanded the final results to the Department to exclude any samples unsupported by consideration from its calculations for NTN. The remand affects NTN with respect to all three antidumping duty orders on antifriction bearings (except tapered roller bearings) (AFBs) from Japan: ball bearings (BBs), cylindrical roller bearings (CRBs), and spherical plain bearings (SPBs). The period of review is May 1, 1993, through April 30, 1994.

In addition, the CIT instructed the Department to review the record to determine whether it is possible to isolate and remove the portions of Koyo Seiko Co., Ltd.'s (Koyo) warranty expenses which relate to non-scope merchandise from the adjustments to foreign market value or, in the alternative, to deny the adjustment if such an apportionment cannot be made.

DISCUSSION

1. Sample Sales

Pursuant to the order of the CIT, we have excluded NTN's samples for which it received no consideration. The Department did this in its computer program by setting the U.S. price and the antidumping duty margin for such transactions to zero. In effect, we have excluded these transactions from our calculation of the weighted-average margin. However, the U.S. Customs Service collects the ad valorem (or per-unit, where applicable) duty-assessment rate on all entries of subject merchandise regardless of whether the merchandise was a sample transaction.(1) Thus, even though the customer-specific assessment rates are applied to all subject merchandise because of the logistical limitations of the Customs Service, the actual amount of dumping duties due is exclusive of sample merchandise. This practice is consistent with our practice in all reviews of this order since the decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Court (CAFC) in NSK Ltd. v. United States, 115 F.3d 965, 975 (Fed. Cir. 1997). See, e.g., Antifriction Bearings (Other Than Tapered Roller Bearings) and Parts Thereof From France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Romania, Singapore, Sweden, and the United Kingdom; Final Results of Antidumping Administrative Reviews, 62 FR 54043, 54068-9 (October 17, 1997).

2. Warranty Expenses

In the previous administrative review (1992-93), the CIT had remanded the same warranty-expense issue to the Department. The CIT instructed the Department to review the record to determine whether it was possible to isolate and remove the portions of Koyo's warranty expenses which related to non-scope merchandise from the adjustments to foreign market value or, in the alternative, to deny the adjustment if such an adjustment could not be made. As a result of Koyo's appeal of the CIT's decision for that review, the CAFC reversed the CIT in Honda Motor Co. Ltd., et al. v. The Torrington Company, 190 F.3d 1321 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (Honda). The CAFC held that the Department's original decision in the 1992-93 review for the allocation of warranty expenses on in-scope/out-of-scope merchandise was correct. Pursuant tothe CAFC decision in Honda, the CIT modified its original remand order for the 1993-94 review and instructed the Department to complete the remand without reviewing the issue of Koyo's warranty expenses. Slip Op. 99-113 at 1-2 (October 22, 1999). In addition, the CIT affirmed the Department's treatment of Koyo's warranty expenses in AFBs V. Id. at 2. Therefore, we made no changes to Koyo's warranty expenses for these final results of redetermiantion.

FINAL RESULTS OF REDETERMINATION

In accordance with the remand order, we have recalculated the antidumping duty margins for NTN as directed by the CIT. As a result, the antidumping margins for NTN for the period May 1, 1993, through April 30, 1994, decreased from 14.34 percent to 14.33 percent for BBs, remained unchanged at 11.05 percent for CRBs, and remained unchanged at 32.33 percent for SPBs.

Richard W. Moreland
Acting Assistant Secretary
for Import Administration

Signed: November 26, 1999



1.  Customs has no way of distinguishing between "sample" and "sold" subject merchandise as the subject merchandise enters the United States. Thus, we calculated the customer-specific assessment rates by spreading the amount of dumping duties due that we calculated after excluding sample merchandise over the value (or quantity) of all subject merchandise to derive an ad valorem (or per-unit) rate applicable to all entries made during the period of review.