Disposable Aluminum Containers, Pans, Trays, and Lids From the People's Republic of China: Final Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value and Final Affirmative Determination of Critical Circumstances

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>International Trade Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[A-570-170]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Disposable Aluminum Containers, Pans, Trays, and Lids From the People's Republic of China: Final Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value and Final Affirmative Determination of Critical Circumstances</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 disposable aluminum containers, pans, trays, and lids (disposable aluminum containers) from the People's Republic of China (China) are being, or are likely to be, sold in the United States at less than fair value (LTFV). The period of investigation (POI) is October 1, 2023, through March 31, 2024. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Applicable March 11, 2025. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Matthew Palmer or Kate Fracke, AD/CVD Operations, Office III, Enforcement and Compliance, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230; telephone: (202) 482-1678 or (202) 482-3299, respectively. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On December 30, 2024, Commerce published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> its preliminary determination in the LTFV investigation of disposable aluminum containers from China. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce invited interested parties to comment on the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination.</E> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>   <E T="03">See Disposable Aluminum Containers, Pans, Trays, and Lids from the People's Republic of China: Preliminary Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value and Preliminary Determination of Critical Circumstances,</E> 89 FR 106433 (December 30, 2024) ( <E T="03">Preliminary Determination</E> ), and accompanying Preliminary Decision Memorandum (PDM). </FTNT> For a complete description of the events that followed the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination, see</E> the Issues and Decision Memorandum. <SU>2</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>2</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Memorandum, “Issues and Decision Memorandum for the Final Affirmative Determination in the Less-Than-Fair-Value Investigation of Disposable Aluminum Containers, Pans, Trays, and Lids from the People's Republic of China,” dated concurrently with, and hereby adopted by, this notice (Issues and Decision Memorandum). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope of the Investigation</HD> The products covered by this investigation are disposable aluminum containers from China. For a complete description of the scope of this investigation, <E T="03">see</E> Appendix I. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Scope Comments</HD> In accordance with the <E T="03">Preamble</E> to Commerce's regulations, <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> the <E T="03">Initiation Notice</E> set aside a period of time for parties to raise issues regarding product coverage ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> scope). <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> No interested party commented on the scope of the investigation as it appeared in the <E T="03">Initiation Notice.</E> Therefore, we did not make any changes to the scope of this investigation from the scope published in the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination,</E> as noted in Appendix I. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>   <E T="03">See Antidumping Duties; Countervailing Duties, Final Rule,</E> 62 FR 27296, 27323 (May 19, 1997) ( <E T="03">Preamble</E> ). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>   <E T="03">See Disposable Aluminum Containers, Pans, Trays, and Lids from the People's Republic of China: Initiation of Less-Than-Fair-Value</E> Investigation, 89 FR 49837, 49838 (June 12, 2024) ( <E T="03">Initiation Notice</E> ). </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Analysis of Comments Received</HD> All issues raised in case and rebuttal briefs are discussed in the Issues and Decision Memorandum. A list of the issues raised in the Issues and Decision Memorandum is attached as Appendix II of this notice. Commerce has made no substantive changes from the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination.</E> contained a misspelling of the name of a Chinese exporter of the subject merchandise. <E T="03">See Preliminary Determination,</E> 89 FR at 106434. We have corrected the misspelling to identify the correct exporter name, Yuyao Rhea Aluminum Foil Products Co., Ltd., in the Final Determination section, <E T="03">infra.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Affirmative Determination of Critical Circumstances</HD> In accordance with sections 735(a)(3)(B), and 776(a) and (b) of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended (the Act), and 19 CFR 351.206, as well as our analysis of comments received regarding our affirmative preliminary determination of critical circumstances, <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce continues to find that critical circumstances exist with respect to imports of disposable aluminum containers from China for the China-wide entity. For a full description of the methodology and results of Commerce's critical circumstances analysis, <E T="03">see</E> the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination</E> and the Issues and Decision Memorandum. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Heritage Group LLC's Letter, “Administrative Case Brief on Behalf of Heritage Group LLC concerning Critical Circumstances,” dated January 29, 2025; <E T="03">see also</E> Petitioners' Letter, “Petitioners' Rebuttal Case Brief,” dated February 3, 2025. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See Preliminary Determination</E> PDM at 19-23; and Issues and Decision Memorandum at Comment 1. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">China-Wide Entity and Use of Adverse Facts Available (AFA)</HD> In this final determination, consistent with the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination,</E> <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce continues to find that the use of facts otherwise available, with adverse inferences, is warranted in determining the dumping rate for the China-wide entity, pursuant to sections 776(a) and (b) of the Act. There is no new information on the record that would cause us to reconsider our decision in the <E T="03">Preliminary Determination.</E> Thus, we made no changes to our analysis or to the China-wide entity's dumping margin for the final determination. For a full description of the methodology underlying Commerce's final determination, <E T="03">see</E> the Issues and Decision Memorandum. <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See Preliminary Determination</E> PDM at 4-9. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Separate Rates</HD> We have granted a separate rate to certain separate rate respondents that we did not select for individual examination. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> In calculating the rate for non-individually examined separate rate respondents in a non-market economy LTFV investigation, Commerce normally looks to section 735(c)(5)(A) of the Act, which pertains to the calculation of the all-others rate in a market economy LTFV investigation, for guidance. Pursuant to section 735(c)(5)(A) of the Act, normally this rate shall be an amount equal to the weighted average of the estimated weighted-average dumping margins established for those companies individually-examined, excluding any dumping margins that are zero, <E T="03">de minimis,</E> or based entirely under section 776 of the Act. <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>   <E T="03">See Preliminary Determination</E> PDM. </FTNT> Because each company selected for individual examination in this investigation subsequently notified Commerce of its withdrawal from participation, their estimated weighted-average dumping margins are based entirely under section 776 of the Act. In investigations where no estimated weighted-average dumping margins other than zero, <E T="03">de minimis,</E> or those determined entirely under section 776 of the Act have been established for individually-examined entities, in accordance with section 735(c)(5)(B) of the Act, Commerce typically calculates a simple average of the margins alleged in the petition and applies the results to the entities not individually examined but found eligible for a separate rate. <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> In this investigation, the simple average of the rates in the Petition is 193.90 percent. <FTREF/> <SU>11</SU> <E T="03">See</E> the table below in the “Final Determination” section of this notice. <FTNT> <SU>10</SU>   <E T="03">See, e.g., Certain Pea Protein from the People's Republic of China: Final Affirmative Determination of Sales at Less Than Fair Value and Final Affirmative Critical Circumstances Determination,</E> 89 FR 55559 (July 5, 2024). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>11</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> Petitioners' Letter, “Antidumping Duty Petition Volume II China,” dated May 16, 2024 (Petition), at Exhibit AD-CN-5. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Combination Rates</HD> In the <E T="03">Initiation Notice,</E> <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> Commerce stated that it would calculate producer/exporter combination rates for the respondents that are eligible for a separate rate in this investigation. Policy Bulletin 05.1 describes this practice. <SU>13</SU> <FTREF/> In this investigation, we calculated producer/exporter combination rates for respondents eligible for se ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 23k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━