The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has upheld a decision by the Department of Commerce in the long-running countervailing duty case on Turkish steel rebar. The ruling confirms that subsidies received by a Turkish scrap and shipbuilding company Nur cannot be attributed to Turkish rebar producer Kaptan Demir Çelik.
The subsidy for Kaptan Demir Çelik was determined at 2.43 percent for the period between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2022, as SteelOrbis previously reported.
In its decision, the court agreed with Commerce that the conditions for “cross-attribution” were not met. Commerce concluded:
- the steel scrap supplied by Nur was a general raw material used across many steel products,
- it was not dedicated mainly or exclusively to Kaptan’s rebar operations,
- Nur’s scrap came from shipbuilding activities and was not designed specifically for rebar production.
Under US rules, subsidies to an upstream supplier can only be attributed to a downstream producer if the input is “primarily dedicated” to making the downstream product. The court found that this standard was not met.