Antidumping Duty Order on Hydrofluorocarbon Blends From the People's Republic of China: Final Affirmative Determination of Circumvention With Respect to R-410B From the Republic of Türkiye

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-570-028]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Antidumping Duty Order on Hydrofluorocarbon Blends From the People's Republic of China: Final Affirmative Determination of Circumvention With Respect to R-410B From the Republic of Türkiye</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) determines that imports of R-410B from the Republic of Türkiye (Türkiye), which are completed in Türkiye using components originating in the People's Republic of China (China), and further processed in the United States, as specified below, are circumventing the antidumping duty (AD) order on hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) blends from China. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable July 11, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Melissa Porpotage, AD/CVD Operations, Office II, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-1413. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On August 19, 2016, Commerce published the <E T="03">Order</E> in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> On July 7, 2023, Commerce initiated a country-wide circumvention inquiry to determine whether imports of R-410B from Türkiye, completed in Türkiye using HFC components R-32 (difluoromethane) and R-125 (pentafluoroethane) (collectively, Chinese-origin HFC components) manufactured in China, and further processed in the United States are circumventing the <E T="03">Order</E> and, accordingly, should be covered by the scope of the <E T="03">Order.</E> <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> On March 4, 2024, Commerce published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> its <E T="03">Preliminary Determination</E> that imports of R-410B completed in Türkiye using Chinese-origin HFC components and subsequently exported from Türkiye to the United States are circumventing the <E T="03">Order.</E> <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Hydrofluorocarbon Blends from the People's Republic of China: Antidumping Duty Order,</E> 81 FR 55436 (August 19, 2016) ( <E T="03">Order</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>   <E T="03">See Hydrofluorocarbon Blends from the People's Republic of China: Initiation of Circumvention Inquiries on the Antidumping Duty Order,</E> 88 FR 43275 (July 7, 2023) ( <E T="03">Initiation Notice</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping Duty Order on Hydrofluorocarbon Blends from the People's Republic of China: Preliminary Affirmative Determination of Circumvention With Respect to R-410B from the Republic of Turkey,</E> 89 FR 16536 (March 7, 2024) ( <E T="03">Preliminary Determination</E> ), and accompanying Preliminary Decision Memorandum (PDM). </FTNT> For a summary of events that occurred since the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination,</E> as well as a full discussion of the issues raised by parties for consideration in the final determination, <E T="03">see</E> the Issues and Decision Memorandum. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> The Issues and Decision Memorandum is a public document and is on file electronically via Enforcement and Compliance's Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Centralized Electronic Service System (ACCESS). ACCESS is available to registered users at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov.</E> In addition, a complete version of the Issues and Decision Memorandum can be accessed directly at <E T="03">https://access.trade.gov/public/FRNoticesListLayout.aspx.</E> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Issues and Decision Memorandum for the Circumvention Inquiry of the Antidumping Duty Order on Hydrofluorocarbon Blends from the People's Republic of China with Respect to Imports of R-410B from the Republic of Türkiye,” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (Issues and Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Order</HD> The merchandise covered by the <E T="03">Order</E> is certain HFC blends. For a complete description of the scope of the <E T="03">Order, see</E> the Issues and Decision Memorandum. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Merchandise Subject to the Circumvention Inquiry</HD> This circumvention inquiry covers imports of R-410B from Türkiye, which are completed in Türkiye using Chinese-origin HFC components and further processed in the United States (inquiry merchandise). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Methodology</HD> Commerce conducted this circumvention inquiry in accordance with section 781(b) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act), and 19 CFR 351.226. <E T="03">See</E> the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination</E> for a full description of the methodology. We have continued to apply this methodology, without exception, and incorporate by reference this description of the methodology, for our final determination. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Analysis of Comments Received</HD> All issues raised in this inquiry are addressed in the Issues and Decision Memorandum. A list of the issues raised is attached to this notice in Appendix I. Based on our analysis of the comments received from the petitioner  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> and the participating respondents, <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> we made no changes to the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination.</E> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  The petitioner is the American HFC Coalition, which consists of individual members Arkema, Inc., The Chemours Company FC LLC, Honeywell International Inc., and Mexichem Fluor Inc. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  The participating respondents are ICE Sogutma Sanayi Ve Ticaret Ltd., SAM Gas Turkey Endustri Gazlari Anonim Sikreti, and IGas Holdings, Inc. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Circumvention Determination</HD> We determine that imports of R-410B completed in Türkiye, using Chinese-origin HFC components, that are further processed in the United States, are circumventing the <E T="03">Order.</E> As a result, in accordance with section 781(a) of the Act, we determine that this merchandise should be included within the scope of the <E T="03">Order.</E> Moreover, we determine, in accordance with 19 CFR 351.226(m)(1)(ii) that this determination should be applied on a country-wide basis. <E T="03">See</E> the “Suspension of Liquidation and Cash Deposit Requirements” section below for details regarding suspension of liquidation and cash deposit requirements. <E T="03">See</E> the “Certifications” and “Certification Requirements for Türkiye” sections below for details regarding the use of certifications for inquiry merchandise exported from Türkiye. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Use of Adverse Facts Available (AFA)</HD> In this inquiry, Commerce continues to find that necessary information is not available on the record with respect to by Cantas Ic Ve Dis Ticaret Sogutma Sistermleri Sanayi A.S. (Cantas) within the meaning of section 776(a)(1) of the Act, and that Cantas withheld requested information, failed to provide requested information by the deadline or in the form or manner requested, and significantly impeded the inquiry pursuant to sections 776(a)(1), (A), (B), and (C) of the Act. Moreover, Commerce continues to find that this company failed to cooperate by not acting to the best of its ability to provide the requested information pursuant to section 776(b)(1) of the Act. Consequently, we continue to use adverse inferences with respect to Cantas in selecting from among the facts otherwise available on the record, pursuant to sections 776(a) and (b) of the Act, for the reasons discussed in the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination.</E> Based on AFA, we determine that Cantas further processed the inquiry merchandise in the United States into subject merchandise and that U.S. entries of that merchandise are circumventing the <E T="03">Order.</E> Additionally, Cantas is precluded from participating in the certification program established for exports of R-410B completed in Türkiye using Chinese-origin HFC components, that is further processed in the United States. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Suspension of Liquidation and Cash Deposit Requirements</HD> Based on the affirmative determination of circumvention for Türkiye, and our decision to apply this determination on a country-wide basis, pursuant to 19 CFR 351.225(m)(1)(ii), in accordance with 19 CFR 351.226(l)(3)(iii)(A), we will direct U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to suspend liquidation and require a cash deposit of estimated duties on unliquidated entries of R-410B, completed in Türkiye using Chinese-origin components, that were entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption on or after July 7, 2023, the date of publication of the initiation of this circumvention inquiry in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> CBP shall require cash deposits in accordance with the rate established for the China-wide entity, <E T="03">i.e.,</E> 216.37 percent, <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> for entries of such merchandise produced in Türkiye. <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See Initiation Notice,</E> 88 FR at 43275. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See Order,</E> 81 FR at 55438. </FTNT> R-410B produced in Türkiye from HFC blends that is not of Chinese-origin is not subject to this inquiry. Therefore, cash deposits are not required for such merchandise under the <E T="03">Order.</E> If an importer imports R-410B from Türkiye and claims that it was not produced using Chinese-origin HFC components and/or not further processed into subject merchandise in the United States, in order to not be subject to the ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 32k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━