A Sidley team led by Richard Weiner and Neil Ellis achieved a significant victory for Yingli Green Energy Holding Co., Ltd., securing a 0% dumping margin on imports of solar cells from China. The decision was issued on June 24, 2020, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC).
The case arises in the context of the second administrative review of the antidumping duty order on imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells from China, in which the Department of Commerce (DOC) calculated a 12.19% dumping margin for Yingli. Because of the unpredictability of the DOC’s non-market economy methodology, the entire margin was generated by an aberrational “surrogate value” for a single input in Yingli’s production of solar cells — tempered glass.
The Sidley team successfully challenged this determination at the Court of International Trade (CIT) and secured for Yingli a 0% dumping margin on remand. The CAFC affirmed the DOC’s recalculation of Yingli’s 0% dumping margin. Importantly, the CAFC also made clear that the DOC must adequately justify its use of surrogate value data and must not “incorporate the distortions in the surrogate market into a hypothetical respondent market.”
Neil Ellis participated in the oral arguments before the CIT and CAFC. The Sidley team also included counsel Raj Pal; associates Shawn Higgins, Justin Becker, and Carys Golesworthy; paralegal Gavin Cunningham; project assistant Maya Shair; and practice group assistant Kate Bartoli.
